I dabbled in ponytail collection using ebay and similar sites a few years ago. At heart I'm a long hair lover, but I think cutting off and saving hair can be one of the most exciting ways to appreciate and to style long hair. So collecting should be right up my alley.

However, I generally found it too much money for inconsistent enjoyment. A ponytail with no story behind it doesn't do anything for me; I like some before/after pictures, to know that she's pretty, to know why she cut it, etc. In one case, I got what seemed to be a nice foot-long blonde ponytail with a decent story, but it reeked of smoke, which ruined the whole thing for me.

My one collecting "success" is illustrated in the pictures below. I saw this long strawberry blonde ponytail for sale on ebay, still attached to the girl, and was able to find a picture of her on her website.

I was intrigued, and ended up with the winning bid on the ponytail. I did not discuss my motivations with her, but from her emails, I was able to discern that she did not cut her hair until after the auction had completed. A day or so later, she sent me this picture with a note that she had even cut a few extra inches:

Unfortunately, there was no way to get during pictures. But I certainly got a lot of enjoyment out of knowing that she cut her hair as a direct result of my winning bid and may have even gone a little shorter because she was so excited about the sale. It brought me one step closer to actually wielding the scissors myself and taking her hair.

The ponytail was (is) beautiful and still has a fresh shampoo scent to it. And I still enjoy looking at the cut end and rubber band and knowing the last time she put her beautiful long hair in a ponytail was with that band.

I was able to glean a few "after" pictures (one a few months later when her hair had grown out some) from her website:

So that was my one positive collection experience. With better matching of buyers and sellers, prices have gone up now. And the locks-of-love craze reduces the number of available tails since all the girls want to "donate" them. Oh well.

I do follow thehairtrader.com and marvel at some of the hair offered there. And the prices. But if you've got the money, it's a collector's paradise. Once in a while some woman with gorgeous hair is offered money to keep her hair long, and she takes it, so that's always nice. What I'd really enjoy seeing is people bidding for the right to cut some of that hair six months or a few years in the future, when it would be even more amazing.