Diana, Princess of Wales used a custom-made spray to avoid being photographed with "helicopter hair".

The late royal was worried about her trademark style being messed up by gusts of wind, so she asked beauty expert Sheree Ladove Funsch and her hair stylist Sam McKnight to come up with a special hairspray that would keep her pixie cut looking perfect no matter what.

Ladove Funsch told New York Post column PageSix: "I am actually a cosmetic chemist by trade ... I developed this reputation of creating products that would fix celebrities' needs ... I got this call ... and Princess Diana had this need so I worked really closely with her and her hairdresser [Sam McKnight] at the time ... She had that beautiful ... pixie cut. When she would get off the helicopter, the blades would just spin and spin and ... her beautiful coiffed, cute little cut would go crazy."
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​She added: "She didn’t want anything that would make her hair look glued down because she was ... so young and so beautiful. She didn’t want to look old and a helmet-head kind of look so I had to create a hairspray ... The nickname was 'helicopter hairspray' so that was her personal hairspray."

Ladove Funsch added that Diana also had another custom hair product mixed up for her because she couldn't use the helicopter hairspray when she was wearing a tiara because the chemicals could damage the precious gem stones.

She explained: "There were two versions. There was the helicopter and then there was the jewel version ... We had to create something that wasn’t as potent as a hairspray but that would still give her a bit of hold … without ruining the jewels.”

However, insists the late royal never had any plans to launch her hairsprays as a commercial venture. She added: "I’m not saying she wouldn’t have launched it eventually and [didn’t want] to do something like that, but that wasn’t the intention. It was just to [create] something amazing [for her]."

from WFMZ.com

Cutting off your hair might mean a bold new look, but it’s also a chance to make some quick cash. You can generally sell your long (or short) locs for anywhere from $100 to $1000, as human hair is a hot commodity for high-quality wigs, weaves, and extensions, but before you grab some scissors you might want to know how much you can get for your lovely mane. Here’s how to price your hair and see if it’s worth the big chop.

Your hair care type and routine matters

Different hair types are worth different amounts. Thicker hair is easier to make into a wig, so it has an advantage; also rare colors like red are harder to come by and pull a larger price tag due to the limited supply. Longer hair earns more cash as well.

“Buyers want thick, healthy, ‘virgin’ hair that is 10 inches long or longer,” says the personal finance site The Balance Everyday. “Virgin” hair refers to hair that has not been altered with chemicals like dyes, perms, or bleaching, and has no heat damage. Even damage from excessive washing can dull the color and weaken the strength of hair.

Unfortunately, there are some discriminatory market trends to expect as well. Curly or tightly-coiled hair (often represented in hair from Black and Brown people) is more difficult to sell. According to Beauty Mag, curly and coiled hair is “less flexible,” which is why some vendors don’t request or carry it. With the growing acceptance and popularity of natural hair, though, curly hair is rising in demand.

How much is your hair worth?

Finding out exactly how much your hair is worth can be done quickly and from the comfort of your home. Beauty Mag offers an easy-to-use calculator. The first thing you’ll see at the top of the site is a box with four sections: hair length, thickness, color, and an option for virgin or not virgin. The first two boxes are sliding scales for you to raise or lower to match your hair. You’ll need a ruler to measure your hair’s length, and you’ll measure your hair’s thickness based on the root of your ponytail. My hair, which is about seven inches long, three inches thick, and virgin, is calculated to be worth $102.90.

How to find a buyer

Selling your hair online might sound sketchy, but a Google search will actually reveal several legitimate buyers. The lifestyle blog Work at Home Adventures suggests “17 Places to Sell Your Hair,” including eBay and Craigslist; other sites like Hair Sellon, Just Sell My Hair, and Online Hair Affair allow you to make an account, submit pictures of the hair on your head, and set a price. With any online sales, though, make sure you keep an eye out for scams.​

A new study shows that the price for a basic salon haircut varies widely from country to country, and in some countries there's a huge gap in price between men's cuts and women's cuts. The United States came in at an average of $95 for a woman's haircut and $44 for a men's haircut.* Just north in Canada, the price drops to $34 for women and $24 for men, and across the pond in England it's $57 for women and $28 for men.

* Keep in mind that, because the data was gathered at each country's capital, the US average reflects prices in Washington, DC, not the national average. ​

Everyone in the world faced the same tough question during endless months of coronavirus lockdown: grow your hair or let your mom cut it?

But now, hairdressers are re-opening, and so are bars, theatres and wedding venues. The Salon de Mom literally won’t cut it anymore. It’s time to get a proper haircut.

The problem is that money is tight right now for most of us. And a proper haircut tends to be a payday treat. Can you afford to give a little dignity back to your ‘Barnet’?
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It depends where you live. NetCredit researched the price of women’s and men’s haircuts in every country around the world, and we found that the disparity between countries and genders is massive. Read on to find the places where getting a haircut is a snip.

​Argentina is Home to the World’s Cheapest Haircuts
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​Scandinavians are famed for their golden locks, and the price of a haircut in this northern European region also glitters. Averaged across genders, four of the top ten most expensive haircuts are in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland). Other big economic powers also feature, including the UK.

At the cheap end of the scale, you’ll find a cut-rate cut in South America, Africa, parts of Asia, and eastern Europe. Argentina is the cheapest overall. Nigeria is sixth-cheapest overall, but it would be different if it weren’t for the 634% disparity between women’s and men’s cuts: a trim costs $13.43 for a Nigerian woman but just $1.83 for a man.

A Man’s Haircut in Norway is the World’s Most Expensive

Think Vikings had messy, unkempt hair? Wrong. The steep price of a man’s haircut in Scandinavian countries today reflects a long tradition of Scandi men taking their grooming seriously. A man’s cut in Norway costs $64.50 today, the most expensive men’s cut in the world. Norway also has the narrowest price gap between genders out of the top 20 men’s cuts: a woman’s cut costs ‘just’ 20% more, at $77.72.

We found nine countries where the five-buck cut (or less) is still the norm for men. The cheapest three are African countries (Zambia, Mozambique, and Nigeria). In Taiwan, a man’s cut costs $2.23 more than a woman’s – but it might just save your life. At the height of the pandemic, one Taiwanese mom paid for a “do not dare to go outside” hairdo for her 15yo son: a haircut so bad that he wouldn’t dare leave the house to see his friends.

The World’s Cheapest Women’s Haircut is in Bosnia – and it’s Cheaper than Men’s
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A different Scandi country tops the table for expensive women’s haircuts: Denmark is the only country in the world where a haircut costs more than $100. However, the US and UK aren’t far behind, at $95.00 and $94.71 respectively. The Danish Board of Equal Treatment ordered individual salons to reduce the gender price disparity in 2013, but courts later ruled that it was okay to have different prices. Today, the average women’s cut in Denmark costs 112% more than the men’s.

All in, Bosnia and Herzegovina may be the fairest place for a woman to get a haircut. Bosnia has the cheapest women’s haircut in the world ($6.20) and a disparity of just 8% – a man’s haircut costs around 47¢ more. Sarajevo, where we took our data, is lined with hairdressers, and the competition keeps prices down. But grooming remains a point of pride for citizens, who even maintained standards during the longest military siege in modern history – to the extent of holding a “Miss Besieged Sarajevo” contest.

Why (and Where) Does a Woman’s Haircut Cost More?

Men pay more for a cut in just 11 of the 102 countries with available data. The biggest gaps are in Africa and parts of Latin America, although Paraguay has the second-lowest disparity. Fairest of all is the microstate of Andorra in southwestern Europe. Andorran men pay more than women, as is the case in eight of the ten fairest countries.

But why does a man’s cut usually cost less? “[I]t doesn’t take as long to cut their hair, but also they’re in the salon more regularly,” explains celebrity hairdresser Adam Reed. “And there’s less time taken and fewer products used on the finish – for a man it’s four to five minutes, whereas women’s blow-dries can take a long time.”
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Still, others are aiming for parity: “We allow exactly the same amount of time for an appointment whether it’s for a man or a woman,” says Covent Garden hairdresser Neil Moodie. “It has been a slow process, trying to convince men that they should pay the same as women, but this was mainly due to the cheapness of going to a barber back in the day versus going to a women’s hairdressing salon.”

Our prices are averaged, so it’s always possible to find a cheaper cut in your area. If you’re time-rich and money-poor, you can always snag yourself a cheap training session with an apprentice hairdresser. And if you can’t afford to make it back to the salon, why not take inspiration from these unlikely quarantine self-haircut wins?

METHODOLOGY & SOURCES

​We sourced the price of a basic haircut (no beard trim or wash) for both genders in 102 capital cities. If prices were not advertised on the internet, our research team emailed and called businesses for a quote.