I'd been growing my hair (with two 'tidy-ups' for wedding and post braids) since January 2012, more or less. The original idea was to grow a 'Princess Jasmin' style braid - you know, the princess from Aladdin?! Yep, I'm that sad... But she's definitely the best Disney princess!
However, not only am I not an Arabian beauty, I am also made of flesh and blood; I'm no cartoon. My hair is nowhere near thick enough to have those luscious locks. So I investigated donating my lengths of locks.
After Googling a bit, I found several charities who ask for hair donations. I wanted one I could trust, and one which needed what I had, plus possibly another month or two. I was getting sick of washing, drying and product bottle draining!
Little Princess Trust was the charity that singer Jessie J chose when she shaved off her hair in 2013, so I decided, if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me. Also, they were only asking for 7 inches - most others want 15. I easily had that!
So, last night, I went for the chop. I was extremely excited, thinking about the kids I might be able to help and the drastic change to my hair do. I ended up with 11.5 inches snipped off - could have gone for more but I wanted to have something to tie back still for work. And clean eating. All I had to do was have it plaited, tied at both ends, and bagged before it hit the floor. There's a UK address to post it to, and the charity does the rest.
And... my hair? I love the result! I'm hearing it's a mix of Yael Stone (Orange Is The New Black), Dora The Esplorer (my personal favourite!) and Arya from Game of Thrones.... Lush!
I think everyone should do this at least once in their lives - I'm going to do a repeat, for sure.
Special thanks to Hannah, my lovely hairdresser, and to Hilary who inspired me from about 10 years ago. I got there eventually!
My haircut journey was posted on Twitter, so come and have a look at the posts from around 5pm last night (13/7/15).
Lou x
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Born To Be A Tourist