A showjumper is to lose three feet of hair to support youngsters who have lost their own hair through illness.
Chelsea Skelton is to go under the scissors today (14 June) in aid of the Little Princess Trust, which provides real-hair wigs to children and young people suffering with cancer or other conditions.
Chelsea has her hair trimmed regularly but has been growing it since she was five, 18 years ago, and it currently reaches past her knees, so she hopes to have some 36 inches to send to the charity.
“I wanted short hair, and to make other people happy,” she told H&H.
“People have said I’ll regret it, and I should do it in stages and see how I feel, but I want the hair to be used for something really good, so it’s all going.”
Chelsea said her hair is “crazy thick”, and of herself, her mother and her sister, “mine’s the tamest of the lot”.
“But I think mine’s held down by the weight; it might explode out of my head once it’s cut as it’s been weighted down all these years,” she said, adding that her sister-in-law, a stylist, is to do the deed.
“I’ve said no pressure but you’re in charge of making sure I don’t look like a mushroom head!” Chelsea said.
“She said she’d crack out the prosecco, but promised she wouldn’t be drunk – she does wedding hair and hasn’t actually cut any for a long time, but I want to do it now. I’m raising money and it is only hair.
“It’ll make someone else happy, and if it looks bad, it’ll grow again.”
Chelsea added that some people donating hair raise money for other charities at the same time. But the Little Princess Trust told her that even with the hair, it costs £550 to make each wig. And as the charity provides the wigs free, she wanted to raise enough to cover the manufacture.
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“If they can’t afford to make wigs, they have to pay to keep the hair in storage,” Chelsea said. “So I wanted to raise enough to cover that, and over £1,100 has been donated already.
“I’ve disassociated myself from my hair now, although it’s going to feel very different – and I’ve got such an aggressive head flick, to get it out of the way, I’ll probably end up giving myself whiplash!”
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