Frankie Cluney, from Brighton, is a real-life Rapunzel with six-foot long hair which, she says, she has not washed for the last 20 years.
The 32-year-old explained how she hated washing her hair and stopped doing so at the age of 13. In addition to that, she revealed that she hasn’t trimmed her hair since the age of 18.
Frankie, who is an artist, says long hair is actually easier to maintain but added how it would take up to thirty minutes to get detangled every morning.
Frankie decided to grow her hair after she fell in love with the fairytale portraits of mythical women having flowing locks at the age of 6.
Explaining the reason behind her long hair, she said: ‘Growing up my mum would have these really beautiful art books and I was really drawn to the images of like the pre-raphaelites.
‘And of the beautiful long hair, the escapism and this fantasy world, and so I knew that I really wanted to be a mermaid and have long hair.’
It was the mother of one of her friends who suggested her not to wash her hair at all.
Frankie said: ‘When I was 13 my hair was probably waist length and already then it was really heavy, it was really thick and I never really enjoyed washing it because it was so difficult to get all of the product out with the shower and just takes so long to dry.
‘It was one of my mum’s friends who actually mentioned this idea of not washing your hair at all and so I thought why not give it a go and I think for the first couple of months it was very greasy, my scalp was a bit itchy.’
Her hair is so long that she has to wear it in a long plait down her back or she has to use knitting needles to pin it into a bun. But she says, her hair is very easier to maintain.
‘It’s strangely very low maintenance,’ she said. ‘People think it must take a lot but because I don’t use any products on it. All I do really is comb it and I do that not even every single day.
‘If I need to do half-an-hour to an hour of detangling I just put on a film and it can be a quite nice meditative process, because if your hair is tangled then you probably had fun getting the tangles in it somehow, like maybe you were dancing or in the wind so you can comb it and reflect on what you’ve been doing.
Meet Frankie in the video below.
‘It also absorbs scents as well so you can sort of remember where you’ve been, and who you’ve been with.’
Frankie has now achieved her childhood dream of having long, mystical hair. Moreover, her hair has also helped her land a good modeling job.
She said: ‘Hair creates this interesting natural focal points around the figure and because where I do the life modelling, it’s almost like having something to wear when you are naked.
‘I have a lot of ideas of how it could inspire certain photos or art works and I make videos using it, almost like different characters or different outfits.’
Frankie’s mother Xen said: ‘When I was a little girl I was never allowed to grow my hair.
‘I swore I would let my children do whatever they wanted to do with their hair and so she wanted to be Goldilocks so she was allowed to grow it herself.
‘And she loved having long hair and she loved having it played with, she loved me dressing it, plaiting it it, de-nitting it.’
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