Her donations are a growing concern

Isabelle Lorentz’s haircuts are always momentous. For the third time in her young life, the 10-year-old chopped off her hair to be made into a wig for cancer patients. This month’s eight inches, puts her total contribution to date at 30 inches.

Her mom, Lisa, says Isabelle was first interested in donating her hair after her cousin did it. It also helped that her hair went all the way down past her butt at just five years old.

“We described it to her at this point, why it’s nice to donate hair because there are people who are sick out there,” Lisa said. “And we talked about children being sick and feeling not as comfortable walking around with no hair, so that this hair that she donated would be used to make a wig. We really did explain it to her how if she grew her hair and cut it what this would actually do to someone’s self esteem and we did relate it to a child of her age potentially becoming sick.”

That first time in February of 2010 she donated 13 inches to Angel Hair for Kids. Less than two years later she cut off another nine inches for Pantene Beautiful Lengths. This time she cut off eight inches for 360 Hair, which is in partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society.

“She grew her hair out and said ‘let’s do it again.’ And she grew it again and here she is, a total of 30 inches, which is unbelievable,” Lisa said.

Isabelle could have donated a lot more hair this time, but as she gets older she enjoys having more length. Lisa says they didn’t choose the same organization each time because this way her donations are helping people in different areas. As for how she feels about saying goodbye to a few years worth of hair?

“She’s really excited about it,” Lisa said. “She’s proud. It’s a lot of work for a 10-year-old to comb her hair. She’s basically got to comb it from the top, then midway down her head, then pull her hair forward and then comb the bottom from the front. And because there’s so much, it’s a lot of work. As she got older she would take more ownership of it, but I still had to help her out.”

The family lives on a farm in St. Clements and she notes the water’s really hard, which makes taking care of her hair more of a challenge. And swimming was a whole other ball game.

“When she’d go swimming, combing through her hair, it always needed to be washed and lots of stuff put in it to get through it,” Lisa said. “She would wear it in braids a lot, just to keep it as tangle-free as possible.”

The first time she donated her hair, she went to a very short bob, which was a huge shock for her. But she dealt with it. Lisa says learning to let go of something like hair, has taught her some lessons at a young age.

“She knew she did the right thing by donating her hair and that it would grow back and she was fine,” Lisa said. “She was like ‘yup, that’s good. It’s different. I’m happy.’”

This time around, Lisa thinks she was a bit more attached to it, which is why she grew it out so long before cutting it off. But, she says Isabelle will likely donate more hair in the future.

“I would think she would because she really enjoys it,” Lisa said. “She gets excited about it. She doesn’t love a lot of attention, but I think because she’s so proud of it, she likes spreading the word. I think she will. And knowing that she can donate a good chunk of her hair and keep the length she has as well, that’s a bonus.”

The wigs are given for free and are custom-made at 360 Hair, a salon in British Columbia. It takes about 12 donations of hair and costs roughly $1,200 to make one wig for a child through 360 Hair.

“That’s why it’s important for as many people to do this as possible,” Lisa said.