How rare are we?

[Heavenly Locks]

I was wondering if there was a way to find out how many percent of the population (say in America) have waist+ hair?

It sometimes feels like there must be LOTS of us long hairs out there because of LHC, but I know that's not true...

:flower:

Just being curious!

[Samikha]

I suppose if you could make some statistical bureau think they could make a profit of that information somewhere, they might do some studies. I'm afraid we're pretty much the only ones who would be interested, though :lol:

[enfys]

Well, we have 22,244 members, and not all of them have waist length hair. And Earth has 6000000000 people on it, so....yeah we're pretty rare.

[Bene]

i kinda see hair length as being on a curve. less bald and super shorties, more medium length, less long hair enthusiasts.

i think what's rare about certain long haired people is the desire to keep it healthy on top of trying to get length. i think the rare part is the noting chemicals in our products and looking for hair friendly accessories, and even then i think we share that with the people who think they're doing good stuff to their hair by bleaching and perming and whatnot. so, long haired ppl like the ones on this forum are a percentage of a smaller group of the population. i think as comparable with really tall people who are left handed. rare, but not bigfoot sighting rare.

[SimplyViki]

I don't know, long hair (at least midback-waist) is pretty common around where I live. I mean, not that many people, but a good percent I'd say have long hair. I am at waist, and still don't consider my hair anything remarkable in terms of length (and that's not just because of LHC:p)

[freznow]

Are we including or excluding the school age kids? A great percentage of female <middle schoolers have long hair, and more high schoolers than grown ups have long hair.

The male population with waist+ hair is almost negligible (sorry, guys), so it's at least less than 50&#37;... ;)

[Islandgrrl]

I think this would be really difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.

It isn't like quantifying the approximate number of left-handed people or green-eyed people in the population. Even though very few of us would want to, longhairs can become shorthairs very easily!

[hellkitty]

Are we including or excluding the school age kids? A great percentage of female <middle schoolers have long hair, and more high schoolers than grown ups have long hair.


I was just thinking this as I watched a bunch of high school girls walk by my house: they both had 'long'ish hair. One was BSL, the other had it up in some bun so it was hard to tell. My female students, most of them have 'long' hair too--but almost non below BSL.

So if we define 'long' as anything you can pull back, that's probably a lot. If you define it as waist or longer, very few.

At least that's what it seems like out here.

HK

[fishwich]

I see three or four people with longer than waist-length hair in a year. (classic, hip, etc.) I have only ever seen one head of hair in person that was knee-length or longer, and I wish I'd realized what a notable thing I was seeing at the time--her braid was ankle-length.

(my own experience is not statistically significant, but it does bear out the anecdotal evidence of long hair being pretty rare. However, I wouldn't have noticed it being very long if it was bunned up..)

[*Aoife*]

Long hair isn't common at all where I live. Everyone has short hair, except girls under 12. Some people have long hair until 15/16 when they cave to peer pressure and chop it all off.

I would love to see someone with knee length hair. I have to say, I am so envious of people on this site!

[jojo]

Where I live shoulder to bsl is common in the teens to 20's age group, but in my age group *cough* 40 *cough* it is very uncommon, apl seems to be the longest I see in this age bracket, older people it is rare to see anything longer than this, so Id estimate we are quite rare in this respct, however in the next county where I worked last year, I spotted quite a few waist and longer in all ages.

[dragonfrog]

I guess I am lucky to lice in a place where long, natural hair is not too uncommon. Offhand, I can think of two ladies in my university classes with classic-length braids. Interestingly, they are both "adult students": one lady is probably in her 40's, with wavy reddish hair going silver at the top. The other lady is much older, and always wears her pure-white hair in two classic-length braids (I believe she is part Native American). They are both wonderful ladies with truely enviable hair. Many other ladies (and some men) have long hair in my area, those two just stand out :)

I imagine the ratio of longhairs in the population varies quite a bit by where you are, and also what age-group you are looking at. Teenagers here seem somewhat more likely to have short hair... perhaps because long haired adults are so common.

[Nyghtingale]

I am unique, just like everyone else.

[nancy33936]

Not too many long long hairstyles here. Waist length is few.

[feralnature]

I am unique, just like everyone else.

...and the wish to be remarkable is quite common :)

[feralnature]

I think long hair is much less common than we even think it is. I remember when I first found this site, I was on sensory overload, I could not believe the number of longhairs here, the incredible lengths of longhairs here. Mind boggling. But I have become accustomed to the miles and miles of hair we all grow here. especially those with hair past waist length. It is almost the norm. But in real life, long hair is just not as common as it has become when I sit in my house and visit LHC on my puter.

[Roseate]

I live in Northern California, so vaguely the same neck of the woods as Dragonfrog, and we have similar long-hair demographics. Lots of it around here. I see waist-hip every day on my public transport commute, classic-knee is less common but I do see it from time to time.

We should lobby to get "hair length" included on the next census!

[Lozzie]

SimplyViki, where is it that you live? Im from London and although my hair is only BSL, my hair length is still less common. I was in awe when i headed to Nevada recently to find so many women with lovely long hair, i also found the same in Florida... also met a girl recently from Washington who had almost waist length hair.. Maybe just cultural differences between UK and US?

It's a shame that so many girls with lovely hair chop it all off for the sake of fashion... But is nice to look different, even if only in particular countires! :-)

[RavennaNight]

Here in Staten Island it's pretty common for women to have BSL hair, and waist is more prevalent here than in some places. Anything longer than waist is rare here. It is usually Hispanic women who have hair longer than waist here. Men, however, have shoulder-APL hair here, it's pretty common.

[Fethenwen]

My tiny home city is full of close minded people who all wear about the same styles. It's the blond straightened hair, or the blond pixie. If not blond, it has to be pitch black whether it suits the wearer or not. And I very rarely see anyone with longer hair than BSL.
So me having red and long hair most of the time has always drawn quite a lot of attention over here :D
Being in another city is a whole different story :) Our capital city for instance is full of all sorts of lengths and colors, dreadlocks and all that. Sometimes I see hair that makes me go :thud: I would say really long hair, past waist is rare even over there.

[Heidi_234]

Where I live waist length is very common. There are less super shorties than BSL or at least APL, if we are talking about women in their 20's that is. I was mostly on the short side relatively to other girls my age.
But hip length and longer is still quite uncommon, but I saw few. There's one redhead with classic length ponytail where I work, it's a delight to see her once in a while. Other classic length longhairs I could probably count on my fingers. Beyond that, I've seen one women - actually a mom!
I think the age group makes alot of difference. If I would have worked in a place with more people in their 30's and older, I guess I'd be seeing much less long hair. :shrug:

[Blue Willow]

I'll venture a guess.. 320 per million

[SimplyViki]

SimplyViki, where is it that you live? Im from London and although my hair is only BSL, my hair length is still less common. I was in awe when i headed to Nevada recently to find so many women with lovely long hair, i also found the same in Florida... also met a girl recently from Washington who had almost waist length hair.. Maybe just cultural differences between UK and US?

I live in Florida, funny you mentioned that. :)

But yeah, I guess it's cultural differences. Growing up, I was very sheltered, and my dad always loved his girls' (my mom and my sisters and I) hair to be long. I've always thought long hair was a universal ideal, it took me a while to realize some people are actually opposed to it for some reason. But fortunately for me, it's common enough that I haven't gotten much in the way of negativity. I will admit though, it does kind of make me feel less unique, but I do realize that there truly is nothing new under the sun - everybody is both unique and similar at the same time, and I'm sure every aspect of my persona is shared with at least someone else on the globe.

ETA: I actually kind of slip into viewing it as a sort of "competition - one of my classmates in the nursing program has tailbone length hair, and I'm counting down until I've "beat" her. :p