Top Five Worst Haircut Disasters

I don't care a whit whether women donate their hair if they are cutting anyway. It's those who sacrifice their locks ONLY b/c they think that they will help a child whom I feel badly for, Rod. And I know three women who did just that. In 2002, LoL received OVER 100,000 tails, yet made 113 wigs by their own account. Even at 15 pieces per wig, that's only 1695 used tails. The rest is sold or discarded.
Women (and others) should be fully informed before it's too late. Long hair represents many years, and to rob those who find joy in their tresses unnecessarily is downright cruel, in my book. Bob

With local and national news and talk shows all touting the wonders of LoL, I don't blame women for placing their trust in their veracity. I think that a 1.5% usage for the cause is a bad deal. The donors on cut-a-thons fully believe that a child will directly benefit from their sacrifice.
Those folks who lay guilt trips on Rapunzel women should either fork over the hundreds of dollars the best tails can get themselves, or start growing their own hair. How many donors would they get if the women knew that the likes of Cher or Faith Hill may be wearing *their* hair some day? Or worse, that it may wind up laying in the drawer of some fetishist. Shouldn't women have the right to be fully informed *before* they decide? Cordially, Bob
P.S. A noble cause does not a trustworthy organiztion make.

Bob S wrote: With local and national news and talk shows all touting the wonders of LoL, I don't blame women for placing their trust in their veracity. I think that a 1.5% usage for the cause is a bad deal. The donors on cut-a-thons fully believe that a child will directly benefit from their sacrifice. Those folks who lay guilt trips on Rapunzel women should either fork over the hundreds of dollars the best tails can get themselves, or start growing their own hair. How many donors would they get if the women knew that the likes of Cher or Faith Hill may be wearing *their* hair some day? Or worse, that it may wind up laying in the drawer of some fetishist. Shouldn't women have the right to be fully informed *before* they decide? Cordially, Bob P.S. A noble cause does not a trustworthy organiztion make.

Ok, this discussion should end here because this isn't the board for it. Continue over on Hair Politics if you want. I will quickly address three points Bob makes here, however...

"Shouldn't women have the right to be fully informed *before* they decide? "

Just like ANY charitable organization, you should research it to make sure you understand how the donations (money, hair, whatever) are being used before you contribute. Just because a charity has "cancer" in the name doesn't mean all the funds are distributed the same way. If women choose to donate their hair to LoL thinking it will all go to kids with cancer, it's pretty darn obvious they didn't take two seconds to do the most basic research to understand what they are contributing to or how the organization works.

"I think that a 1.5% usage for the cause is a bad deal. The donors on cut-a-thons fully believe that a child will directly benefit from their sacrifice."

Search the site. Search the web. Find me evidence that they won't use the donated hair. From the FAQ on the site (http://www.locksoflove.org/faq.php):

Q: Why does Locks of Love ask for 10 inches minimum length in a donated ponytail?
A: Most of the children whom Locks of Love helps are girls. They want long hair. The manufacturing process uses 2 inches of the hair, leaving only an 8-inch length. Most of our girls want hair 12-14 inches long, requiring donated ponytails of 14-16 inches. When Locks of Love needs to manufacture a hairpiece for a boy, we use some of the shorter lengths that have been separated by hand from each donated ponytail.

Q: Can I donate a ponytail that is shorter than 10 inches?
A: Yes, but only with the understanding that it will most likely be sold to help offset the at-cost manufacturing of hairpieces for children. If this is your desire, please include a note to this effect with your hair donation.

Q: Do you need financial donations?
A: Yes, financial gifts will enable Locks of Love to pay for the production of the hairpieces, which are then donated.Proceeds from the sale of short or grey hair help to pay for expenses like long-distance telephone service, website maintenance, postage, shipping, printing, etc.

From all I can find, they sell the unusable hair. The usable hair is stored to be used for future wigs. And if they were completely strapped for cash due to lack of monetary donations, why wouldn't it be OK to sell some of the hair? It was donated to help the kids get hairpieces. If it is sold, wouldn't that serve the same purpose?

"How many donors would they get if the women knew that the likes of Cher or Faith Hill may be wearing *their* hair some day? Or worse, that it may wind up laying in the drawer of some fetishist. "

Two very inflammatory statements, especially that last one. The former could possibly be true, but the last one is completely baseless. Why even throw something like the fetish statement out there? You figure they are selling ponytails on eBay? Have evidence to back that up?

Anyway, as I've said before on this subject, if you don't like Locks of Love, don't contribute. If you have long hair and folks are pressuring you to cut it and donate it, tell them that you'd rather write a check or choose to decline the same way you do when the MS Society calls you. Basically, you're no more of a heartless SOB for not supporting LoL than you are for not supporting Make-a-Wish or any other charity. It's your choice.

Just don't get that mixed up in your personal "all long hair must be preserved" agenda.

Ok, I'm done. Moving on to haircut disasters again, I'll touch on one mentioned in my column a few years back, Lisa Ling's chop on "The View". I could have done that better. In the dark. With a sharpened spoon.

Later,
JF

Bai Lings's shave did let you get past the hair...you know. All I could see was that gorgeous hair when I saw her...almost as though she was secondary.

Oh I know - Lisa Ling's haircut on The View was pointless...If Lisa is afraid to go near shears again for the rest of her life, I don't blame her.

What about Courtney Cox Arquette's "Dudley/Demi Moore" haircut? (about 1997 or 98?) By far the worst style she ever had...and I never found out if it was a haircut gone wrong and they had to figure out how to write it into the show...or it was an actual decision to do a haircut on the show.

jacqui

I liked Lisa Ling's hair better a month or so after the cut on TV. She took the bob shorter, and ended up with a nice variation of a bob. Very cute!

My two cents.

I think Alanis has beautiful eyes, Gord, and a killer smile, which her short cut shows off. Plus, all of her medium length cuts had chunky layers, which I hate on everyone. I'd much prefer to see her hair short than sloppy looking.
Truthfully, I think she was 10X sexier with long hair, though. I'd have gone to the ends of the earth to see a headbanging Alanis show before she started cutting her hair. Now, she looks like every woman, which ain't bad, (lol), but I can see that look everwhere. I don't have to plunk down 50 bucks to view it. Sorry, short lock lovers, I *like* some short haircuts, but they never make my heart pound out of my chest, as voluminous tresses do. Best, Bob

DaveDecker wrote: even if your claim contains an element of truth, it seems to me that "these guys" aren't the only ones guilty of having such an effect. How about those who make women regret having long hair and make them feel less pretty (or less stylish, or professional, etc) with it? There seems to be a lot of people telling other people what they think of their hair, or of others' hair in general (as opposed to this board, where people talk about celebs "behind their backs").

"Even if your claim has an element of truth?" You must not live in the same male dominated society I do. Men tell women they are only pretty and desirible with long hair. There are many ways men lower female self-esteem (weight, breat size, et al) and this is one of them.

There are people telling women with super long hair they are less stylish. The number of people doing that are tiny compared to the boyfriends, husbands et al. who tell women they are only pretty with long hair.

DaveDecker wrote: They apparently do not give away 5% of the hair donations they receive. The figure appears to be closer to 2%.

Based on what Bob S wrote. Do you have any actual evidence?

They do nothing to inform the public that the usage rate is so low. Nearly all of the donors quoted in the press reports that I've seen are of the firm belief that their hair will be used in a LoL-manufactured hairpiece. [/QUOTE wrote: Name me a charity that sends out press releases saying what they don't do. How much of their donations does the American Cancer Society or American Heart Association use? od] Locks of Love is a nice charity. Name me a charity that sends out press releases saying what they don't do. How much of their donations does the American Cancer Society or American Heart Association use? [QUOTE]od] Locks of Love is a nice charity. Such a nice charity. And Enron was such a nice company. Not. Enron defrauded people of millions, maybe billions. Their senior executives committed illegal acts. What evidence do you have that anyone from Locks of Love has done anything approaching that? Are you saying they've stolen millions of dollars and committed securities fraud? Please provide evidence of that. Show me that they don't provide wigs for sick children. [QUOTE] Back on topic... I think "disaster" (as originally used) was simply the opinion of the poster, nothing more, nothing less. That interpretation seemed apparent. Interesting dissection on the meaning of the term as used, though, Rod.

Thank you the compliment.

You're giving anecdotal evidence, and yet you ask for hard numbers you know I don't have. I'll give you anecdotal. Most men prefer women to be thin, very thin. They like large breasts. And they like long hair. Now that's not all of men, but most.

And being that you have very long hair, you're sensitive to female friends who have long hair and their boyfriend/husband would like to see it short. They probably come to you to talk about it. And I'm sure some of those men bug their wives/girlfriends to cut it.

I assume you have a few female friends who've had short hair, although I don't know for sure. Anecdotaly, I've heard many men complain when a wife/girlfriend cuts her long hair short or pressure a short-haired woman to grow it out so it looks pretty. I doubt there's any difference in how much these men bug their wives. And there are far more of them.

Now, I have no problem with long hair, and I really don't have a problem with a husband/boyfriend let his preference known. I just have a problem with the universal male contempt when someone like Keri Russell cuts her hair. Women notice this and are warned.

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DaveDecker originally wrote:
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Don't assume that I blindly quote Bob S's numbers. I've researched this particular organization for over 4 years now. I have gathered my data from a variety of media reports as well as their own press releases and info they provide on their website. I've done the math. It computes to about 2%.
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Since you have that much data, can you provide a link to the evidence?

quote:
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DaveDecker originally wrote:

My secondary point is that they are not entirely honorable in their operations. They are building a mountain of cash by selling hair, they don't inform the public to whom they sell the hair, and they don't provide any accounting of the disposition of the hair donated to them. They are not necessarily lying, but they are not telling the whole truth -- and the whole truth is information the public should know.
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I looked at their BBB report and they have less than a half million dollars in cash. That's not a mountain. They say on their website that they sell hair to raise operating funds. Not only shouldn't it matter who they sell it to, they don't need to tell anyone. Like all charities, they don't need every detail scrutinized. If someone doesn't want to donate because of that, don't donate.

LoL gives as much information as required, similar to most charities. They don't provide unnecessary informationt hat might cost them money. They do the charitible work they say they do, make wigs for sick kids. Whether that's more worthwhile than the American Cancer Society or the Humane Society or other charities is up to the donor.

It's a noble charity that isn't illegally funneling the money into people's pockets. Your problem isn't with them. You love long hair on women. Some women cut their hair short just for Locks of Love and might not cut it if they knew that all the hair doesn't go to kids. Sometimes they only cut it because people pressure them.

Your issue is with the people pressuring and the women who might change their mind. Separate that from a charity that provides wigs for sick children.

I believe that Dave's point that there is actually more prejudice against long haired men and women than men and women with short hair, and there is enormous pressure on men and women to cut their hair is true, including the Locks of Love people. In my lifetime we have become a short haired society.
I'm in my 40s. Those of you my age can remember the 1970s and 1980s, when more men and even more women wore long hair. Somewhere in the 1980s society shifted and more and more people cut their hair short.

I also disagree with Rod that most men prefer women with long hair nowadays. Once males get past the teen years I don't think this is true. Most of the guys I know have wives or girlfriends with short or fairly short hair and find the short haired look on women attractive (myself included). Men have gotten used to women having short hair. I don't think you can make any objective argument about that one way or another.

I used to encourage and sometimes maybe even pressured in some ways people I know with long hair to try a short hairstyle but I no longer do that. I have become aware of the fact that there is now a "reverse discrimination" of sorts against people with long or ultra-long hair, and that isn't right.
If someone asks me if I prefer short hair on women I would say yes, because I'm honest with them, but I no longer try and persuade women I know at work or wherever to try a short hairstyle. If a woman I know does get a short hairstyle I will compliment her, but that's as far as I go.

First you tell me:

DaveDecker wrote: I've researched this particular organization for over 4 years now. I have gathered my data from a variety of media reports as well as their own press releases and info they provide on their website. I've done the math. It computes to about 2%.

So I ask you for to back up your claim. If you've garnered all this data and read press releases, there must be websites you can like me to. Then you say:

DaveDecker wrote: Again, I urge you to do the math. And I challenge you to offer a credible, evidence-based assertion that a significantly large percentage of hair donated to LoL is actually used in the hairpieces they make for children.

We start out with your assertion that LoL doesn't make many wigs and what I did was challenge that assertion. You don't support it, but instead challenge me to refute you.

You seem to have mistaken me for a Locks of Love employee. I have no information on Locks of Love other than what's on their website and I'm not the one trying to prove anything. You're the one trying to prove they are a fraud. I have no idea whether a large or small number of their donations go to sick children and was not the one trying to prove either way. I was trying to learn from someone who claimed he knew the inside story.

DaveDecker wrote: Two references come to mind: (1) People Magazine, Sept 6, 1999 issue, indicates 20,000 hair donations received by that point, (2) Chicago Tribune, March 12, 2000, indicates 800 hair donations received every week. Also, the organization used to say how many people they've provided wigs for. Last number I saw was 1,000. But that was about a year ago.

Your information in the top paragraph is 4-5 years old, so it isn't relevant to what they're doing today. And all this information is incomplete and doesn't give me links to support it.

DaveDecker wrote: ... LoL does not publicize information on their need -- or should I say lack thereof -- for additional donations of hair. If a person wants to cut their hair completely of their own volition, and donate it to LoL with full awareness of their overstock of hair, then I have no problem with that.

Name me one charity that publicizes their need -- or should I say lack thereof? Giving bone marrow is a painful procedure, unlike getting a haircut. Do you know what percentage of bone marrow is usable? Do you know what percentage of the money donated to fight Parkinson's is actually spent on research? How about what percentage of the money donated to public television actually goes to purchase programming? And what percentage of that goes to fat salaries of the producers?

I donate to my alma mater, and they spend only a small percentage of the endowment. They never told me that, but I've read articles on how universities spend their endowments and how they invest it. I still donate.

Do you expect all of these organizations to run big ad campaigns or issue press releases with this info? If a charity starts talking about what they don't do, they'll go under. And if you're going to scrutinize a charity to the extent that you demand they should publicize this, then you should demand it of all of them.

From what I know of Locks of Love, they:

1) Do make wigs for children with Aploplecia. (sp)
2) Are not having any IRS or BBB problems with their business practices.

Even if they only make wigs with 2% of their hair and don't spend all their money, they are still providing something that sick children need. And that's good work. I don't see how you could think that's a bad thing.

Once again, I think your issue is with misinformed men and women who don't research a charity and with those who pressure them to cut their hair, not the charity itself.