Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that creates wigs for financially disadvantaged children (18 years or younger) suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Whereas most non-profit organizations would love for you to donate your time or money, Locks of Love would love for you to donate a part of yourself -- your hair (and/or time and money!)

It is amazing how much of a difference that you can make by simply donating your hair it does not cost you any more money than the stamp and envelope to mail it in, and it costs you no more time than it takes to snip off 10 inches of hair. It is even easier to donate your hair than it is to donate blood (and there are no scary needles!).

If you are interested in donating your hair to Locks of Love, there are a few things that you should know:

You must donate at least 10 inches of hair (from tip to tip)  the longer, the better. Before you chop off your locks, make sure that it is clean and dry.  Bundle your hair in a braid or ponytail (if you keep it in a pony tail, consider using a few extra elastics around the middle and the end). Do not donate hair from a salon that has been swept off the floor  it must be properly bundled. Locks of Love does not discriminate between sexes, races, or ages  they appreciate hair from anyone and everyone. It is alright if your hair has been colored or permed, but do not send in chemically damaged or bleached hair. Hair does not go bad  so, if you have well-stored hair (in a ponytail or braid) that you cut off 10 years ago, that is great!  Send it in. Short hairs and gray hairs (or other hair that is unsuitable for children) will be separated out.  This hair is actually sold  the money made from this offsets some of the cost of manufacturing. Place your hair in a plastic bag, and then put it in a padded envelope.  Fill out a hair donation form (this can be found at the Locks of Love website), and mail it in.  It is that easy.

As abovementioned, people of all ages can donate hair. It is interesting to note, however, that the majority of donors are children children who want to help other children.

Amazingly, it can take 6 to 10 donated ponytails to create one human hair wig (hair prothesis). This is partly due to the fact that shorter hairs are removed, as is other unusable hair. One human hair wig might take as many as 150,000 individual hairs! In the end, after these many hairs are made into the wig, 2 inches of length is lost from the total 10 inches (or longer) that the wig-maker started out with.

As you can imagine, one of these hair prothesis is not cheap it could retail for up to $6,000. The cost of manufacturing can be quite expensive (even with all of the hair donated for Locks of Love, they also need money to pay for the manufacturing).

Some of us may take our hair for granted it is something that we were born with, something that we twirl around our fingers when we are in deep thought, something that we complain about on bad hair days. It may never occur to us how much a child would love to have a human hair wig how much a child would love to even have just one of our bad hair days.