what you're seeing is 200,000 ponytails
of humans here combined that's at least
25 miles of here hair is just busting
out all over the place too much all
these ponytails are donated but not all
of them will be made in two weeks
in fact many get eliminated at the
beginning of the week making process
cannot be used so it's a shame that
these people donated their hair and they
thought that I was gonna do something
nice for somebody but it's not usable so
how do they decide which ponytails to
keep and which to toss and once hair
makes it through inspection how does it
go from this to this cutting the hair is
only the first step of the process and
perhaps the easiest from there workers
perform over 50 hours of manual labor to
transform the single ponytails into
full-fledged wigs this can take four to
six months hair we share is a nonprofit
that provides free wigs to people with
hair loss due to a medical condition so
most people when they think hair loss
they think cancer we're way more than
that in the last month we've serviced a
motorcycle accident domestic violence
and to burn victims its co-founders
enlist the help of 20 volunteers to sort
through the abundance of donations at
their New York headquarters the donator
here is sorted into categories of color
texture and length
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let's Brown sorters measure the hair to
make sure it was just a minimum length
of 8 inches otherwise it can't be used
blue ain't doesn't need to be exactly
the same fits 3/4 inches even 6 inches
it's fine just not 2 feet and 8 inches
in addition to here that's too short a
lot of other things this qualified
donated here like here that's
highlighted tangled or just has
unnatural colors because the hair is not
tied together in a rubber band and it's
reversed it will tangle so it's not
usable the post office has rollers that
the mail goes through and if it's in an
envelope that's just a regular envelope
it gets torn and the hair gets caught in
the rollers and so unfortunately this is
beautiful blonde hair which are always
in meetup but we just can't use it this
came to us wet so we appreciate that the
person wash their hair but it needs to
be dry before they send it to us this is
now molded and it smells that and it
just cannot be used when we can't use
hair and unfortunately we discard it we
have tried to find companies that will
use it to clean up oil spills and any of
the companies we've contacted so that
they're getting too much hair so I'm
gonna put one one together now okay yeah
so this is black so watch watch we can
call this black the hair sorted into
eight colors when I look at hair I see
40 colors I don't see eight hair colors
once the hair is all mixed together
you're not gonna know if it's light
brown or medium brown and we all have
more than one color in our hair so it's
it's perfectly fine it takes six to nine
ponytails to make a single wake those of
similar color texture and lang
are packaged together and sent to here
we shears manufacture their the
ponytails go through a hackle to evenly
blend the hair and remove any uneven or
weak strands
during this stage anywhere from 10% to
60% of the hair can be lost depending on
his strength and health but what is left
as smooth blended here the freshly
haggled here is then pressed into a
holding card with tiny metal pins to
ensure it doesn't get tangles again part
of the hair is sewn into West which are
then sewn onto the sides and the back of
the wig cap the rest of the hair strands
are ventilated by hand this is what
makes the wigs look realistic small
strands of hair are pulled through cap
with a hook one by one this is an
extremely meticulous process that can
take up to 10 hours per wig after the
last strand is ventilated the
manufacturer sends the finished wig back
to here we share where is washed and
styled but not all the donut at Pointe
Hills are guaranteed to make it to a
manufacturer even if their perfectly
usable the ponytails cost us nothing
because they're shipped to us it's all
labor intensive unless we have the
financial donation from this year we
won't have enough money to create 3700
wigs those ponytails have to sit in
inventory until they're sponsored or
funded
before the hair that does get made into
wigs it finds a new purpose for the
recipient you know I'm just excited
excited to get the wig oh it's lovely
it's beautiful it is I can't even
believe it's not my hair I got used to
be involved but honestly putting the wig
on and having that beautiful just this
hair makes me feel a little bit like my
old self which is a blessing
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