National Donate Your Hair Day

A couple of summers ago, two of my good friends, Kim Ulmer and Cindy Riley, were both fighting cancer at the same time. Cindy lives in Mississippi, but came to Salt Lake for a week for WGU meetings. I had introduced them online a few months before. Although they were fighting different types of cancer, I thought maybe having each other to turn to might help them.

Cindy had chosen to wear a wig after she lost her own hair. Before Kim’s treatment, she had beautiful red hair. She opted for hats during her treatment, partially because she couldn’t find a reddish wig that was “her.” When the three of us got together in July, Cindy decided to go sans wig since Kim was going to. In the middle of July, they were relatively cool (also partially due to treatment side effects) while I was roasting with my long hair. This is the only picture I have of all of us during that visit. I hate this picture of me, but my friends are beautiful.

Friday, April 27 was National Donate Your Hair day. I had been thinking about cutting my hair again, but when I heard about this day set aside for women all over the country to cut and donate their hair, I was in!

Here are articles about it in the Huffington Post and on the Pantene Beautiful Lengths website, where I donated my hair.

Ryan wasn’t sure about me cutting my hair. Donations have to be at least 8 inches long. I ended up cutting and donating 10 inches! My stylist knows I never style my hair straight (it’s naturally curly, and the time and amount of product to straighten it just aren’t worth it to me). So she straightens it whenever I go to her. Here’s the short hair and the two pony tails for donation right after the cut.

I definitely received mixed reactions to my decision. I heard everything from, “That’s the ugliest hair I’ve ever seen” to, “What possessed you to do that?” And two 3-year-olds in my life didn’t dare come near me since I looked different. But once I washed it and let it curl again, the responses were 100% better. Here’s the look the next day.

And the hair for donation…

I’m not sure how (maybe Cindy), but my hair donation was even written about in our department newsletter for work! I’m glad I did it. Someone will benefit from my hair.