Sell Hair

Sell Hair

Selling human hair isn’t nearly as creepy as it sounds. In fact, hair is one of the oldest commodities around. There are even some amazing ways to donate hair that may appeal to you.

Humans have had hair since the beginning and probably a whole lot more than nowadays.

Hair or the lack of it has come to signify power, beauty, health, prosperity, even intelligence, as in the case of eggheads.

Samson of Samson & Delilah fame was said to derive his power from his hair.

O. Henry’s short story The Gift Of The Magi” is probably the most famous hair-selling story. Does every sale of hair have to be such a tragedy? The answer is “no. “

The first question on most people’s minds is “what is hair worth?” For the answer to that question, we turn to HairWork.com. It appears as though prices range up to more than a thousand dollars!

HairWork.com and even eBay and Craigslist have listings of hair for sale. We should add that we’re unaware of an online buyback for hair, where the site itself buys it from you. But, the fact that it’s possible to sell hair at all is pretty amazing. So, we thought it worthy of inclusion in our survey of items one can sell. With any kind of online listing of an item for sale, be careful in how you proceed.

Donate Hair

Not only can you sell hair, but you can donate it to some pretty nifty causes.

Human hair is an amazing absorber of oil. According to a recent Wall St. Journal article, MatterOfTrust.org collects donated hair, weaves it into hair mats or booms and then uses the mats/booms to soak up oil spills. The oil-covered hair can then eaten by worms and composted into dirt, apparently suitable for garden use.

I’ve met Lisa Gautier of Matter of Trust and can tell you that Matter Of Trust is the real deal… highly committed, smart, great idea, thrifty and gets results. She and her team made a big splash in helping clean up the 2010 Gulf spill.

There are also some non-profits that accept donated hair to be made into wigs for kids with hair loss from disease or treatment, like chemotherapy.

Here are some general tips for selling or donating hair:

• Don’t dye or bleach your hair.
• Longer is better.
• Pony tail the hair with rubber bands before neatly cutting.
• Make sure whoever is cutting keeps it in one neat banded bunch.
• In the case of selling, don’t cut before receiving payment.
• Document your transaction
• Package your hair securely
• Get insurance
• Consider C.O.D.
• Ship with tracking and signature-required
• Read everything you can find carefully before proceeding

Selling back hair may not be as automatic as selling back a book, but donating hair to a worthy cause may be even more gratifying.

As with all website offers, certain restrictions apply. You should always read everything thoroughly at the site making the offer before proceeding with any sale, purchase or donation.

Full disclosure:BlueRectangle.com buys no hair. Visitors to BlueRectanlge.com hereby agree as a condition of use to independently verify any and all claims, terms, conditions, offers made by or relating to any and all sites linked to above and to hold BlueRectangle.com and it’s owners, agents, and/or employees harmless from any and all claims arising from or in any way related to said Visitors use of the above links/sites and/or any sale or donation of any item to any entity. No warranty, either expressed or implied, is given.