Locks of Love has received criticism for its practice of selling donated hair, rather than using it in wigs as the donors expect. They refer to the hair they sell as "unusable material," but the buyers are using it to make wigs. According to a 2003 report by the
Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, in 2002 alone Locks of Love had raised over $150,000 by selling donated hair and had received another $213,000 in charitable contributions and grants, but provided only 113 human-hair wigs.
Locks of Love representatives are frequent guests on
The Oprah Winfrey Show and other daytime television shows, where they provide haircuts to guests and audience members. Though the representatives and show hosts normally suggest that the hair collected during the show will go into a wig, that the wigs are given free of charge to children with cancer, neither of these outcomes is guaranteed.
[3][4][5] The organization was formed to help people with the illness of
alopecia, not necessarily to help cancer patients.
[5]
[edit] Accountability standards
The BBB 2010 report now lists Locks of Love as a reputable charity. The Better Business Bureau report issued July 2008 states that Locks of Love does not meet its standards for charity accountability because the organization did not accurately report the charity's expenses in its financial statements despite requests for that information.
[6] The Better Business Bureau reports that Locks of Love made $352,401 from "unusable material sales".
[7]
