Harry Styles Growing Hair to Donate to Hair Loss Charity

In what could be a tremendous boost to people who have lost their hair to cancer treatment, One Direction star Harry Styles has revealed that he is growing his hair to donate to charity. As a result, awareness of the charities who collect human hair to make into wigs for people with hair loss is likely to rocket.

The best known of these charities in the UK is the Little Princess Trust, a fondly-regarded organisation that takes donations of hair and turns them into wigs for youngsters who have lost their own, usually because of cancer treatment.

Real-hair wigs much sought

Real-hair wigs are also much sought by children with the autoimmune disorder Alopecia Areata, which leads to hair loss ranging from small bald patches to all-over baldness. A more extreme form of this condition, Alopecia Totalis, causes complete hair loss on the whole head, while Alopecia Universalis affects the hair on the entire body.

Styles' announcement that he was planning to donate his hair was made on James Corden’s hit US chat show during an interview in which the singer’s long hair was brought up.

Referring to a picture of Styles meeting Prince Harry at a recent Royal Variety show, Corden said: “Here we have a picture of when Harry met Harry. Here you are. Is this true that Prince Harry asked a question that I am wondering? He asked about your hair, and quite where we’re going with it at the moment? When’s it going to stop? What style is the next, Styles?”

Internet speculation about hair

Styles then revealed that he was planning to grow it to a total of nine inches, so that he could donate it. This quickly led to much internet speculation about how long he still has to go, with most One Direction fans suggesting that he still has around four inches (or roughly eight months) to go.

The Little Princess Trust has a number of criteria for any hair donations. Hair needs to be a minimum length of seven inches when donated, which suggests that if Harry is indeed donating to them he would be able to leave himself with a two-inch crop after it has been cut.

Best of all, given Styles' celebrity status and international profile, he could turn his hair cutting into something of a big event, possibly raising many thousands of pounds for charity in sponsorship money even if many 1D fans would probably prefer to pay him to actually keep his hair as it is.