Selling hair in Beijing

[zhwj]

Has anyone ever sold hair in Beijing? I'm thinking of getting mine hacked off, and remembering the crushing sense of loss the last time I looked at my sawed-off ponytail lying there on the ground (that was back in Brooklyn, and it was only afterward that I discovered people actually bought hair), I wonder if there'd be some way to bring joy to some other individual who wants blondinsh-red extensions.

Is it worth it? What do people pay here for hair cuttings?

[md1101]

i guess you could try asking some of the salons around? they might want to buy your precious hair.

[mrtoga]

Why stop at hair? You could offer a special package of hair (one heads worth), blood (one pint - nearly an armful!), semen (5,000,000 sperm) and a kidney. All you would need to do is find a balding, alcoholic female haemophiliac who is having trouble conceiving!

[roddy]

Sure, but who knows what they'll use it for.

[kudra]

If your motivation is

to bring joy to some other individual who wants blondinsh-red extensions.

and the money isn't the object here,

you could donate it to a non-profit that makes wigs for kids who've lost their hair from chemotherapy.

The non-profit is http://www.locksoflove.org/, but their web site seems to be down (now it's up again.) There is some information about them at

http://www.dana-farber.org/bou/how/

I knew someone who did this. locks of love needed ponytails of some minumum length, can't remember. This was a couple years ago.

[zhwj]

Those look like interesting programs, kudra. I'll have to check with the Chinese postal regulations, though - not so sure they'll be too keen on having me mail hair out of the country. It'd be nice to find something like that domestically.

Probably won't be for a few months yet, but I'll be sure to post back here with results, whether I donate it or fetch a nice sum for it.

[kudra]

@zhwj

instead of a private female(I assume) laowai trying to negotiate with the Chinese postal service, and since you have a few months to play with, why don't you email dana-farber, or locks of love, and have them go to bat for you with the Chinese authorities. If that doesn't work, they probably know someone who knows someone, and can arrange for your ponytail to get out in the diplomatic pouch. And then you option the film rights.

[heifeng]

Do they really care what people mail as long as it's not explosive, pornographic, or a testube filled with plague?

Ebay your hair and mail it in a box with foam balls! Worse comes to worse maybe someone just steals it after they dig throught the foam packaging and discover it's just hair...

[zhwj]

I only mention the postal thing because I and others have in the past been prevented from mailing used clothing back to the US on the basis of some regulation or another, and I assume used hair would be treated slightly more strictly than that. I'll explore my options - thanks for the suggestions. It all goes out the window, I guess, if I get convinced to try a dye job first.

(male, btw)

[griz326]

I cut off my pony tail in April and gave the hair to the Locks of Love organization. It was the second time I did it.

It gives you a good feeling to know that being a hippie at age 55 can do some good for a kid suffering through chemo.

[zhwj]

An update for closure: No, I didn't solve the China Post question; ended up sending the ponytail back with a friend who was going back to the States, to be mailed off to the charity on that end.

Thanks, kudra, for the suggestion.

[kudra]

不谢, my pleasur

[heifeng]

Somewhat related follow-up...

Do they really care what people mail as long as it's not explosive, pornographic, or a testube filled with plague?

To partially answer my own questions. Shipping of things that could be potentially diseased is restricted, that's apparently why you may encounter problems shipping clothing and such. (I have now heard of this problem for some vendors selling questionable used clothing too...)

I'm not sure if mailing hair would run into some problems because of this too. I've mailed a few things to the US in a main post office (20 lbs and so) and wasn't really interrogated. At the smaller post office they seemed more concerned about what was being shipped, specifically being concerned about used clothing, and at the time that package was just going within China.

So it doesn't really answer this specific hair question, but maybe sheds a little little bit of light on the issue of mailing items...