Donating Hair: Locks of Love vs. Pantene Pro-V Beautiful Lengths

Several years ago I donated to Locks of Love. They did send me a postcard when they received my hair. But looking back, I believe that Locks of Love has been deceitful with their message. They portray themselves to be an organization that gives away wigs to kids with leukemia. As the other posts suggest, this isn't exactly true.

The other thing that I think you have to consider, is that if they're telling you that they're selling "unusable" hair--it's entirely possible that they are selling usable hair. "Unusable" is a very subjective term that I'm sure they use at their own, undisclosed discretion. If you look at the wikipedia article for Locks of Love, it says that they only made 113 wigs in 2002, but got $150,000 from donated hair sold. In 2005 they got $352,401 from donated hair sold. Truth be told, I wish there was more transparency here so that I could see more recent number breakdowns, but you have to admit--there's a trend.

Also, as noted before they do not meet the Better Business Bureau standards for charitable accountability because they failed the following qualification:

"Accurately report the charity's expenses, including any joint cost allocations, in its financial statements. For example, audited or unaudited statements which inaccurately claim zero fund raising expenses or otherwise understate the amount a charity spends on fund raising, and/or overstate the amount it spends on programs will not meet this standard."

I'm certainly not trying to promote one of the other programs over this one, but I wish I would've been more aware of all of these facts earlier. I would not have donated to them.

My hair is long again and I'm looking at organizations to donate to; after finding all of this out, I would rather sell my own hair and donate the money to an organization that's honest with the people who support it than give it to Locks to Love again.

I have donated once before and am actually about to go again in an hour to donate to Beautiful Lengths. I know a woman who received a wig from the organization linked with BL two weeks after I donated the first time. I first chose BL just because it was lesser-known and supports women instead of children, but the fact that cancer patients receive wigs for free really makes me feel like it is the better one.

anniekeg,
not all of the hair donated can't be used by locks of love because sometimes people donate hair that is to short (less than 10 inches). that hair get sold to commercial wig makers who could use the hair for peices like the hair ties that have hair around them. i know thats not very appealing but it does bring in some profit so that they can get more money to make the wigs they can with the hair thats the appropriate legnth. I have held an event to bennefit locks of love(for my senior project) and i thinks its an excellent program.

I donated my hair twice to Locks of Love and researched Wigs for Kids as well. Both companies failed to pass the Better Business Bureau's standards. Locks of Love sent a measly postcard (which I know it's not about the recognition). So i decided to look for other companies. Beautiful Lengths has a great, detailed, developed website. In the website they recognize how much of a sacrifice it is to donate hair. THey donate to people of all ages who are usually not able to purchase a wig, not just children. They don't sell the hair to make a profit either. Both Locks of Love and Wigs for Kids have been known to sell the donated hair to profit wig organizations. (Even on their website it states this.) Beautiful Lengths is an awesome place to donate. And they have a lower length requirement.

I donated my hair to Beautiful Lengths instead of Locks of Love because of the fact that Locks of Love charges for their wigs and Beautiful Lengths does not. Beautiful Lengths also requires less length for a donation. Go to the site and see what you think for yourself. I will be donating to Beautiful Lengths again in the next few months.

I am glad I ran across these posts...they have been very helpful in our decision. My 6 year old daughter just got 8 inches cut off. We will donate to Children With Hair Loss, simply because it is a child giving to another child. I have been growing my hair for almost 3 years. I now have close to 9 inches. I need to make my decision next.

Just looked at the websites. The one I'll be using is Children with Hair Loss; they accept donations of 8" or more, and gray hair is ok (Pantene won't accept more than 5% gray).

It' s REALLY important to know that Locks of Love wigs and Pantene Great Lengths wigs are made entirely differently and for entirely different people. Locks of Love makes near-prosthetic wigs that kids with life-long hair loss can wear while swimming, dancing, playing tag, etc without fear of the humiliation of having their hair suddenly come off. Very different from cosmetic wigs that would be donated to, say, adult women going through chemotherapy hairloss. Locks of Love wigs are super expensive to make, and they usually don't go to kids whose hair loss is temporary--as most hair loss from chemotherapy for cancer is. Without Locks of Love, families have a choice of (a) surgical prosthetic hair implants (often more than $10,000), (b) a standard cosmetic wig (which can't be worn swimming or relied on in active play),or (c) permanent baldness. They have a "pay what you can" sliding scale program for the wigs--once in the program, a child will probably need to replace their wig as they grow, every 18 months or so, another thing that makes the program different and more expensive than cosmetic wig makers. Pantene Great lengths has a super-efficient and highly regarded donation program for COSMETIC wigs for adults. Both programs serve very important needs. Locks of Love is a non-profit organization, unlike Pantene, which has to support all of its activities through donations. Because their name has gotten so widespread, many people think they are a cancer patient program, although their website makes their mission very clear. They get more hair, and less money, than they can use--so they do sell unusable hair (even tighter reqs than pantene, because it's for kid hair) to wigmakers, and use the proceeds to fund operations. Because my hair and I are older, and I wanted to honor a friend with cancer, I decided to send LoL a check, and send my hair to Pantene.