Real Hair Extensions - Don't Wear Them

virgins before their wedding happily take part in this tradition

I wonder what the groom chops off to show to symbolize his acquiescence to and impotence in the face of a greater power...

smorgs, do you eat meat? Chicken, turkey, pork, beef or lamb?

Reasonable people disagree about all kinds of things.

I'd recommend that anyone considering a donation to Locks of Love do a fair bit of independent research before proceeding.

The expectations of the worthy donors may not be met by the reality.

Locks of Love has received criticism for its practice of selling donated hair, rather than using it in wigs as the donors expect. In general, hair contributed by Americans is unsuitable for wig manufacture. The reason is that their hair is damaged by frequent washing, the use of styling products and dyes, and the heat from hair dryers and irons.

* Guidestar noted in a 2005 report that Locks of Love receives over 104,000 donations of hair each year, but has created a total of 1000 hairpieces since 1997. In response, Locks of Love asserts that six to ten hair donations are required for each wig.

At ten donations per wig, 1000 wigs would require only 10,000 donations. From the 1997-2005 period of time, at 104,000 donations a year, Locks of Love would have recieved an estimated 936,000 which assumes 1997 is included. That still leaves over 925,000 donations unaccounted for.

Can you stand another LOL rant?

I just read DBF's latest journal entry and once again, she was chased down by another one of those LOL advocates. I mean, it wasn't somebody simply making a comment about the "charity". This person chased her all the way through the library and out the door in order to tell her about LOL.

I just looked up their info online and what I found was their financial report from 2002. Give.org report on Locks of Love. In a nutshell, this is what it said:

Source of Funds

Contributions 194,398
Hair sales 150,719
Grants 18,991
Interest income 7,858
Program income 2,474
Gain on investment sales 103

Total Income $374,543

Now, half the time I get a compliment, the complimenter will mention Locks of Love and I'm getting pretty tired of it. I'm ready to print out this page and give it to them so they know the truth of this organization.

Give.org says that LOL does not meet Standards for Charitable Accountability. I imagine these people mean well but it's really starting to feel intrusive to me.

Financial

The following information is based on LoL's audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2005.

Source of Funds
Contributions 552,554
Unusable material sales 352,401
In-kind donations 45,327
Interest 10,279
Net unrealized loss on investments -2,339
Loss on leased equipment -17,325
Total Income $940,897

They're basically scam artists. They get something like 100,000 (literally) donations a year and only make about 100 wigs a year, and they make them out of Indian and Indonesian hair -- like all wigmakers. And they don't give them to sick kids. They sell them. And not to kids with cancer either, like they always say on Oprah. The recipients of these expensive wigs are usually kids with alopecia, which is not fatal by any means -- but they never bringthis up because "alopecia" is much less box-office than "cancer."

The vast majority of the American hair they get is thrown out because it's too processed and washed/blowdried too frequently. That's why wigmaking companies won't use it and prefer south Asian hair; it's not as chemically mucked with.

However, the balance of Western hair that they get that's usable ... they sell. They claim they do it to offset their costs, but they pocket a lot of money -- something like $300,000/yr. (Despite this, they still sell the wigs to the kids who need them!)

The kicker is that most kids with alopecia don't care for real-hair wigs, like most people with hair loss from chemo don't. They take too much care, they are uncomfortable, and they go bad far sooner than synthetic hair wigs.

And honestly -- most people with any illness just want to get better and get back to growing their own hair.

But none of this ever comes up, Oprah keeps on having these shows where her audience leans forward and licks their twisted chops watching women crying and getting their hair chopped off like it's some sort of sick gladiatorial spectacle, and to make it worse, if you have long hair and don't want to chop it off, you're guilt-tripped because obviously you hate poor little sick kids with cancer.

It's all just ... twisted. And all for a hair-selling/wig-making company, not a "charity" at all. Less than 1% of their donations go to the people who are their intended beneficiaries. I'd rather give blood; at least I know that's going to someone who needs it. And I'm not made to feel like a tall poppy getting cut down to size by a bunch of jealous soccer moms in the process. Yuck ...

Probably a longer reply than you anticipated. :-) Locks of Love is a sore subject here; this is the only place where I ever learned how many donations they got, how few went to the actual sick kids, and how incredibly lucrative the whole thing was for them. If people want to grow their hair for charity, the best thing to do is to sell it on eBay. Some weirdo might buy it for a fetish, but you can donate the whole check to Katrina relief, or cancer research, or no-kill animal shelters, or whatever you like.

When I took my late wife to the wig shop to conceal her baldness due to chemotherapy, I enjoyed her gratification at finding a real-hair wig that closely matched her own hair. If she learned that her wig was provided by an impoverished woman who needed money to feed her kids, she would have been additionally pleased to be able to serve as her market. How unfortunate it would have been if noone wanted to buy the woman's hair.

[quote="Miller]

The above is merely "HEAR SAY" on your part, since you haven't provided one LINK to support your commentary.

Is this Dorothy for real?