#HairtoSpare TV Boost for Little Princess Trust Hair Loss Charity

One Direction star Harry Styles is turning his much-anticipated new haircut into something of a three-act opera and it’s all working wonders for the British charity set to benefit from the donation of his locks.

Shortly after Styles posted a picture on Instagram of his chopped hair bundled up in a ponytail alongside the hashtag #LittlePrincessTrust, the founder of the trust was invited onto ITV’s This Morning show to discuss with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby exactly what was going on. The Trust is one of the country’s best-loved charities, having provided thousands of real-hair wigs to children with hair loss.

Welcome boost

Interest in the charity has surged since the One Direction singer first pledged to donate his hair back in December, and the frenzy over Styles’ Instagram posting is sure to give the charity’s #HairToSpare hashtag a welcome boost. Launched in January 2016, it is the charity’s first social media campaign and is designed to encourage those with “hair to spare” to donate their locks so that it can be turned into a wig for a child who has lost their own to cancer drugs or as a result of the autoimmune disorder Alopecia Areata.

The three-minute TV segment on This Morning, which you can watch here, saw the Little Princess Trust founder Wendy Tarplee-Morris explain that Styles’ involvement had all come as a bit of a surprise.

“A little while back his management team contacted the charity and said that Harry had expressed an interest in supporting us so we gave them some details and left it, thinking that if anything were to happen they’d come back to us,” she said. “Then on Friday (the day of Styles’ Instagram posting) it all happened.”

Chemotherapy led to hair loss

Ms Tarplee-Morris went on to explain how the charity began after the sad death of her daughter Hannah who passed away when she was five.

“Before she passed away she had some chemotherapy treatment and lost her hair and it was an area we thought there was very little importance placed on and very little help available,” she told the presenters. After Hannah died, the family with the help of Hannah’s school and some friends bought a wig for somebody and “from there things have snowballed.”

Ms Tarplee-Morris went on to explain that donated hair needs to be at least seven inches long, although 12 inches or more was even better. She also said that hair needs to be clean, dry and dispatched in a pony tail or, ideally, a plait. As the segment was coming to an end Schofield asked if Harry Styles’ hair had actually arrived yet; Ms Tarplee Morris replied that, “it hasn’t arrived yet; there are plans in place to get it to us safely.”

At the time of writing, Styles’ new look had just been revealed albeit courtesy of a couple of grainy fan shots taken on the set of new movie Dunkirk, in which he is starring. Social media is poised for the inevitable meltdown.