P&G employees and friends help hair donation program | Business

CINCINNATI (FOX19) - Procter & Gamble hosted a hair donation event Thursday afternoon in support of the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, and in partnership with The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati’s March 2012 production of “Rapunzel! Rapunzel! A Very Hairy Fairy Tale.”   More than 120 P&G employees, their family and friends and local community members gathered in Downtown at the P&G Corporate Headquarters to each donate their hair to benefit the program.  

Pantene Celebrity Hair Stylist Tippi Shorter was joined by 30 local hair stylists and characters from the Rapunzel production to volunteer their time to help cut the ponytails that were donated to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program.  In addition to the hair cutting, representatives from the American Cancer Society spoke at yesterday’s event to share their appreciation for the program and those who donate their hair.  Previous ponytail donor Siena Potorski also spoke at the event.  Siena, who has a brittle bone disorder, expressed her desire to give back by donating her hair to help others with cancer, just as others have supported her as she struggles with her disease.  The master of ceremonies for the event was Kevin Crociata,  Marketing Director of North American Hair Care at Procter & Gamble.

“We are continually impressed by the dedication people nationwide have shown to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program year after year.  Pantene believed that its partnership with The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati would be the perfect opportunity to host its second hair cutting event, allowing the P&G Family and the Cincinnati community to cut and donate their hair to the program,” says Crociata.  “The people who donated their hair yesterday are such an inspiration, and their selfless donations are truly going to make a difference to cancer patients. We could not thank these amazing men, women and children enough.”

Created in 2006, Pantene Beautiful Lengths inspires people to grow, cut and donate their healthy hair to create free, real-hair wigs for women who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments.  To date, Pantene Beautiful Lengths has received more than 311,000 hair donations from generous men, women, and children.  The American Cancer Society distributes the wigs through their nationwide network of wig banks at no cost.  Since the start of the program, more than 18,000 real-hair wigs have been provided to female cancer patients.

This event kicked-off the countdown to the first ever “National Donate Your Hair Day” on April 27, benefiting the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program.  Pantene and Seventeen Magazine have partnered to create this annual day of giving where people nationwide are encouraged to cut and donate their hair.

The requirements to donate hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths are:

1.            Each hair donation must be at least 8 inches long.

2.            Hair may be colored with vegetable dyes, rinses and semi-permanent dyes. It cannot be bleached, permanently colored or chemically treated.

3.            Gray hair is difficult to use in the wig-making process, so hair may not be more than 5% gray at the time of donation.

For more information about National Donate Your Hair Day, the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, how to get involved, and list of participating salons, please visit www.facebook.com/PanteneNA or www.seventeen.com/donatehair.

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