Great Lengths, Hair and Hope for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and Great Lengths is giving back to help children who are going through treatment.
The Little Princess Trust is a charity giving Hair & Hope to children and young people by providing beautiful real hair wigs and funding vital research into childhood cancers.Following its ongoing partnership with the Little Princess Trust, World Leader in hair extensions, Great Lengths, is proud to announce that over 4,000 bundles of its 100% human hair extensions have been donated to the charity to help create real hair wigs.
The Little Princess Trust is the only dedicated charity that provides real hair wigs to children who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment or other illnesses. The charity has been accepting donations from Great Lengths since 2015. The collaboration was initiated by Great Lengths extensionist and co-founder of M Hair in Nottingham, James Henderson, when he noticed that high quality hair extensions being removed in his salon could be re-used as hair donations.
Currently Great Lengths is the only hair extension brand in the world which can be used after removal to make wigs due to the high quality of the hair and ethicality nature. Over the past fourteen years, the Little Princess Trust has provided over 10,000 real hair wigs to children in need and has funded vital research which improves treatments and outcomes for children with cancer.
It takes 300 grams of hair to make one children’s wig, which is the average weight of two full heads of extensions. The Little Princess Trust can accept Great Lengths hair extensions that are 16 inches or longer, and clients can donate their used hair directly through the salon where they have their extensions applied.
Previously, Great Lengths extensions used to be mixed with other hair donations, however 18 months ago the charity started creating wigs specifically with the extensions. Covid-19 put a temporary halt to usual proceedings, as the Chinese wig manufacturers were unable to produce wigs. This led to the sourcing of UK manufacturers, and a small network has now been set up to carry on the great work – with all wigs stitched with the Great Lengths product code to confirm its authenticity.
Since switching to local manufacturers, five full wigs for children have been created using purely Great Lengths hair. For this to have been achieved through the Covid crisis is remarkable, particularly given that making wigs is an extremely labour intensive process, with the majority of work done by hand. It takes up to 60 hours to create one wig, with rigorous quality checks in place to maintain standards.
Since salons are back to normal working hours and many Great Lengths transformations are taking place daily, The Little Princess Trust is hoping to produce 10 more Great Lengths wigs – and Great Lengths will be making a donation for every salon that returns hair over 16”.
It’s easy for Great Lengths salons to get involved in this important cause. Hair simply needs to be removed as usual, then packed and sent in a pre-provided kit!
Joscelin McCourt CEO of Great Lengths UK & Ireland, said,“We are honoured to continue to collaborate with The Little Princess Trust, it’s such an inspiring charity and one that makes so much sense for us to contribute to. We live and breathe hair and felt that too much waste was happening before the introduction to the charity. This year we really want to celebrate our long-standing partnership with LPT and encourage all salons to get involved.”
For more information about the partnership please CLICK HERE and be sure to follow the charity’s movements on Instagram.
*Donated hair extensions will only be used in the LPT wigs following quality checks by wig manufacturers.
