Large, elaborate hairstyles came into fashion in the West in the 1700s and 1800s. These hairdos required wigs or hairpieces to achieve, and this created a market for human hair — preferably beautiful long hair.
While growing long hair specifically with the intention of selling it is possible, it's not a common business plan. Most hair sellers are women (or perhaps occasionally men) who grew long hair for themselves, and then sold it in a moment of economic desperation.
While not entirely a Forgotten Trope, it has mostly dropped out of usage today. Shorter haircuts came into fashion and women are less likely to have long hair. The advent of more convincing synthetic wigs has partially dampened the demand. That said, the hair trade is still a thriving market today, with India being the main exporter and the US being the main importer.
Many modern examples lift it verbatim from the 1906 short story "The Gift of the Magi". Please put "Gift of the Magi" homages under Gift of the Magi Plot.
Sub-Trope of Prized Possession Giveaway and Important Haircut. While it depends on the character's outlook, it's usually a downplayed Traumatic Haircut.
Depending on the framing, this may have allusions to other, more dangerous ways that desperate people with nothing else to sell but their own bodies, such as prostitution and selling organs.
Examples:
- Erandi's Braids (1999): Erandi is a little girl, on the brink of her 7th birthday, with thick hair down to her waist. When her mother needs money for a new fishing net, they head to the barber's shop. Erandi thinks her mother is about to sell Erandi's hair and is terrified. Actually, she tries to sell her own hair, but the barber says it's not long enough. Erandi summons her courage and offers her own tresses. The book ends with an author's note about the context: in the 1940s and 50s, the hair of indigenous Tarascan women from Michoacán was specifically sought after. They have great hair genes, and also a culture that prizes hair long, making it more painful to part with it.
A set of long, thick braids was the main source of feminine pride for the Tarascan women. The villagers believed that a stranger's scissors might cast an evil spell. Once the women sold their hair, they feared that it might become cursed and would never grow back. But financial hardship would often force them to sell it.
- "The Gift of the Magi" (1906): Della and Jim are a young married couple, and it's Christmas. They really want to get each other nice gifts, but they're broke. In an Act of True Love, Della cuts and sells long beautiful hair for $20, and uses the money to buy her husband a pricy gift: an accessory for his antique pocket watch. Ironically, he sold his watch to buy her a hair accessory. They're left with two beautiful, caring gifts that can't be used.
- The Little Mermaid (1837): After the mermaid's sisters learn of her awful deal in which she is doomed to die after the prince is married, they make their own deal with the Sea Witch: giving up their hair in exchange for an enchanted dagger that will free the Little Mermaid from the curse, if she kills the prince.
- Little Women (1868): During a family emergency, Jo sells her hair to a wigmaker for $25. Her father has been injured in the Civil War, and the family needs money to send her mother to Washington, D.C. to take care of him.
Jo: I hadn't the least idea of selling my hair at first, but as I went along I kept thinking what I could do, and feeling as if I'd like to dive into some of the rich stores and help myself. In a barber's window I saw tails of hair with the prices marked; and one black tail, longer, but not so thick as mine, was forty dollars. It came over me all of a sudden that I had one thing to make money out of, and, without stopping to think, I walked in, asked if they bought hair, and what they would give for mine.
- Les Misérables (1862): Fantine is a Struggling Single Mother. She cuts and sells her hair for 10 francs because she needs money to support her young daughter Cosette.
Fantine: My child is no longer cold; I have clothed her with my hair.
- Vorkosigan Saga: In Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012), Ghem-Estif (formerly Haut-Estif) lets a collector cut her previously-uncut hair (Haut hair being highly valued for rarity and cultural significance) for a chunk of money that her family needs to travel to Barrayar to reunite the family after surviving a coup.
- The Woodlanders (1887) by Thomas Hardy: Marty is a poor labourer who sells her long beautiful hair.
- The King of Queens episode "Sold-Y-locks": Carrie Heffernan sells her hair to a wig-maker to turn a quick buck. (In a case of Real Life Writes the Hairstyle, actress Leah Remini chose to go to a shorter bobbed hairstyle in real life; the episode was quickly written to explain her new hairstyle In-Universe.)
- Little House on the Prairie episode "Little Women": Ginny is in a play, and wants her mother to come watch it. Thinking her mother would go to the play if she had a nice dress, Ginny secretly sells her hair to a wig maker and buys her one.
- Housepets!: In one strip
, Bino sells all of his fur to buy an iPhone cover for Duchess. She responds with a $10 gift card and comments that the case doesn't even fit her phone.
- There is a legend that after Rabbi Akiva became a great sage, his wife was walking around in a golden crown he gave her. The wife of another rabbi saw that and complained to her husband. He said, "She earned it. In order to support her husband's studies at school, she sold her hair."
- While selling hair has now become uncommon (at least in the West), donating hair, usually after a particularly drastic haircut, is still done to this day. The organization Locks of Love is one such recipient of donated hair, which it uses to make realistic wigs for Littlest Cancer Patients.
