Girl sells hair for £3000, buys family a new house now has dream life

[Beatnik Guy]

Once again the Daily Fail exibits seriously questionable journalism. Quelle Suprise.

The Daily Mail song comes to mind.

[jeanniet]

She's a child of the favela (slums). "House" is a relative term. I doubt they're living in anything like the average American house.

[PurplePenguin]

Her hair was really lovely but I am glad she was able to make some money from it.

[jeanniet]

Having been to Brazil plus what I understand from friends, the areas like the girl lives in have very limited internet if any.

Add in very minimal and basic education.

Add in quitting school young to work.

Then the basic fact that English is a VERY hard language to learn.

Her lack of LHC standard of care is pretty understandable.

A friend grew up eating ONE small to US standards meal every two days. He was eating less than what many see as an appetizer, yet he says he was far better off than this girl.

I can't say what she did was so horrible because I know how bad off my friend was and he says he was better off. I've done post Katrina clean up and I was better off then than how he grew up. There is NO way I can dream how bad off this family is.

I lived in Rio for a year, and my parents lived there for six years (and have visited many times since), so I have some familiarity with the culture. The article did say that she attends school, so while she might be a favela kid, she's not likely to be a street kid, and from what I understand, there is at least some computer access in schools. The street kids do have it very tough--very, very tough--which isn't to say she doesn't, but at least she's in school at this point.

But I agree with you that if selling her hair helps to buy her family a better standard of living, more power to her. I just think the article itself is misleading. There's just no way everything in it is true.

[Thenolegirl]

This article seems strange to me...Not all the facts are quite right. The last comment she made was really strange how she would nickname her daughter Snow White as it would "be more practical" ?

I doubt the stuff about her not living a normal life with long hair.

[Merlin]

There are videos of this on Youtube - guidelines prevent linking to cutting videos so you'll have to use your Youtube-Fu to find them. They look like they're from a TV program - if you're in the UK think "The ONE Show"

There are clips of what we can assume is the inside of her current house (I don't speak Portugese so they may not be) but the house she's in seems far from a shack to me even if it's not large.

[Othala]

Speaking from over 40 years of braiding, no, I don't think braid waves or braiding is damaging to your hair, PROVIDED, however, that you don't braid tightly or braid all the way to the ends.

Also, if one favors a particular braided style, then it is a healthy thing to vary the position/place of the braid so you aren't braiding in the same "spot" time after time.

And of course it's always a good idea to be careful when removing any elastics at the end of the braid. Don't just pull them off.

Thank you very much for your response and advice, Madora.

I was cringing when reading your words as I braid right to the ends and pull off the elastics. I did not even consider that I might be damaging my hair . Silly me.

[Mesmerise]

This woman was featured a while back, a number of months ago in the Daily Fail, and a lot of people then thought it was a bunch of hullabaloo. I still wonder. Look, it doesn't take 1.5 hrs to bruch or comb long hair, even thick and slightly wavy. It doesn't take 4 hours to wash this hair. UNLESS maybe it's all prep work as in carrying buckets of water from the town well. But washing it, literally, doesn't take 4 hours. When you have hair this long, you get kinda good at figuring out stuff that was previously figured out. Such as this kid said she wasn't free to do a lot of stuff because of her hair length, and had to sit and not participate. Had they never heard of braids or updos? Really? It isn't that hard to figure out. A 12 year old can figure it out, for sure, to braid it, at least. If Mom was doing all this help, why she didn't figure out braids, I have no idea. But it's kind of weird.

Just my thoughts. I wonder that this is a story exagerrated to some extent?

heidi w.

To be fair, it used to take a good 45 minutes to brush/comb my daughter's hair when it was waist length (and she was only 4/5 years old, so waist on her would probably not be BSL on an adult) because of how it would tangle. So, yes, I could imagine that it would take 1.5 hours to detangle hair of that length, especially if she wore it loose for any length of time (the time it took to do my DD's hair was straight after washing - and yes, I used conditioner... a lot... and let it soak in conditioner for several minutes to facilitate detangling!!).

I don't know how it'd take 4 hours to wash... but bear in mind without running water (which they may not have had) it wouldn't be as simple as just doing it in a shower? Maybe the 4 hours included drying/detangling time though?

The rest of the article (ie not being able to use a fan, or ride a bike or blah blah sounds like hogwash to me though...often impoverished people are very good at doing hair!!! They learn how to style long hair because they often don't have access to good hairdressers and stylists, and therefore end up with long hair... her family would also know how to deal with long hair... so I don't buy a lot of that stuff).

[Mesmerise]

This article seems strange to me...Not all the facts are quite right. The last comment she made was really strange how she would nickname her daughter Snow White as it would "be more practical" ?

I doubt the stuff about her not living a normal life with long hair.

As in Snow White doesn't have long hair so it's easier to care for than Rapunzel's . Call your daughter Snow White and she can be a princess without exceptionally long locks!

[Bagginslover]

I think she is lovely, long hair or not.

some of the comments on here are surprising me. she's 12. she didn't write the article.

This.

The way I read it, she couldn't go out and learn English because she didn't go out much as she was afraid someone would cut it off (which, from others experiences here, we know does happen). I'm sure money was a factor in that too, but the article actually says she was afraid. Same for going out to play with her friends.

Her hair look VERY thick, and with those waves, if she wore it down fo any length of time before brushing it, I can easily see it taking that long to brush carefully. You also have to remember that though long, its probablt not in tip top condition, as I doubt she would have been able to afford conditioners, oils etc, so it would be grabby and tangle at the ends, making it that much harder to brush.

4 hours to wash, including drying time (because most non-LHC people include drying as part of washing in my experience)....that seems fast to me! But then she is living in a much warmer climate to me......

Good for her I say, she has done a wonderful, selfless thing for her family.