Long Hair Don’t Care: Meet the Real Life Rapunzel

For some, having long hair could seem like a curse at times, whether you’ve spent years growing it naturally or you’ve purchased it from a beauty store.Yes, every once in a while you can whip it back and forth in a beautiful motion and feel like you’re in a fabulous shampoo commercial, you have endless hair-do options and your hair can help keep you covered if you have a reveling top on. However, while all of these things are truly great, they do some with some long hair problems. For this family though, they seem to be getting by just fine.

Meet Terelynn Russel. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and daughters. Terelynn is a mother with ‘good DNA for growing hair’ who has let hers grow to well over 6 feet long, longer than her own height, giving her the vibe of a real-life Disney princess named Rapunzel.

Her 3 oldest daughters must have inherited those same hairy genes because they all have long, thick, beautiful manes of their own that nearly hang to the floor.

‘You have to have patience to be in this house with all of this hair,’ said Terelynn Russel in a recent interview.

 

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Passing down the family tradition: The 43-year-old mother of 4 has taught her daughters how to properly braid each other’s hair and even believes her son is learning a great lesson about girls and how to treat women growing up in a house hold full of long haired ladies.

But just like everything else great in the world, there are some important rules in the Russel household: all girls must keep their hair tied up in the kitchen, especially around the stove. Think about the fire hazards! Yikes.

While having 6 foot long hair is certainly beautiful, it could actually pose as a danger sometimes. Russel admitted that she once stepped and tripped on her own hair as she was getting up off the couch to change her youngest daughter’s diaper.

There are also many mandatory hygiene rules in the house of hair. Mom, for one, uses a substantial amount of shampoo, followed by an equally substantial amount of conditioner.

She then wrings out her 6-foot mane before blow drying it for at least 1 hour.

‘The money that I save in salon visits is probably spent on clips and hair conditioner,’ she told Inside Edition.

Over the last 6 years, Russel and her daughters have donated a lot of their long hair to charities for children and women in need, including a recent donation to Locks of Love. But Russel states those haircuts never take off more than 20 inches at a time.

‘My earliest memory of the shortest hair would be when I was four years old starting kindergarten and it was down to my waist,’ said Russel.

‘To me, short hair would be just above my waist,’ she continued.

 

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 Meet the hair raising family:

 

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Having long, beautiful, flowy locks might look like a walk in the park but in all reality, a lot of problems  come along with maintaining those locks! More than you would actually think. Take a look:

 

1. You use the same amount of shampoo and conditioner in one shower than the average person does in a week ; and that’s not counting the mousse, smooth­ing gel, shine oil, and – oh dear god – the hairspray.

2. Blow dry­ing your hair feels like an end­less arm workout. It can take up to 3 hours depend­ing on how many breaks you want to take for resting, eating or wiping up your tears. It really can get so sweaty that your bathroom starts to feel like the cardio room

3. It’s great when you get decide to get all glammed up for a night on the town until your neck­lace decides to bury itself into a dreadlock you didn’t know existed at the nape of your neck, your hoop earrings are being yanked by an invis­i­ble strand of hair and every­time you try to be cute and flirty while running your fin­gers through your hair you tear out a chunk with your ring. 1 word: OUCH

4. At least once a week you’ve got to stop eating and pull a long hair that’s made its way down your throat because it’s still attached to your head. It really says, “I’m a grace­ful young lady, don’t judge me!”

5. Lip­gloss isn’t just lip gloss. Lip gloss is actually a glittery, sticky hair-trap the sec­ond there’s the tiniest gust of wind.

6. Mood lighting?  Nope! Those pretty little can­dles that restau­rants put out on the tables are simply a haz­ard. The sec­ond you lean in to take that cute selfie with your date or lean in for that peck on the kiss – the sweet smell of burn­ing hair will fill the room and the mood will be killed. For real, I’ve seen this happen before.

7. Tank tops are awesome, if you want the bottom of your hair to smell like BO. Especially if you’re driving or working out, it can and WILL get stuck in there and make it physically impossible to move your head.

8. Speaking of getting your hair stuck– there’s car windows, car sunroof, and doors. Not to men­tion, other people when you hug them, your purse and the back of chairs.

9. It’s a bib automatically. Any­thing you eat, my hair will taste too. It espe­cially likes to dip itself into condiments and sauce without you wanting it to do so.

10. It’s inside your freezer. It’s on the ceil­ing of your shower. It’s on the laun­dry in clumps. It’s on your dog. It’s literally EVERYWHERE. I’d like to forever apologize to my vacuum.

I could go on about the cons of long hairfor days but even if your long locks cause some problems, they’re prob­a­bly totally  worth it.

 

 

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