A woman who has grown out her hair since the age of five and who believes the real beauty of a woman is the ‘length of her hair’ says men beg to sniff her locks.
It takes Alyona an hour to wash her 1.8 metre-long hair, with the real-life Rapunzel combing it twice a day to get rid of any tangles. However, she only washes it once a week.
The 34-year-old, from Ukraine, claims to receive dozens of marriage proposals from men online who offer to travel abroad to see her, with some even asking if they can sniff her hair.
You can follow Alyona’s hair journey below:
Alyona keeps her locks healthy and strong by trimming her split ends every six months, having become obsessed with keeping her hair long ever since she was a child, when her mum advised that a ‘long braid adorns a woman’.
She explained that her mum’s words ‘live in [her] heart and soul throughout life’, adding: ‘For me, true beauty is in naturalness and naturalness, which is why my hair is so long. It is the manifestation of my inner world, part of me and my soul.’
The 34-year-old has no plans to grow her hair out even more, saying the most important thing is that she stands out from the crowd by being original and staying true to herself.
Alyona explained (translated to English):
I never wanted to cut my hair and I don’t want to grow it even [longer]. I don’t know, time will tell, naturally I really want it.
The most important pluses of the length of my hair is that I stand out against ordinary women, I have my own personality and originality.
The 34-year-old has since started an Instagram page, on which she posts daily pictures of her locks for her 13.7k followers – some of whom admire her from afar.
Describing her subscribers as ‘the best’, saying they always ‘delight’ her with positive comments about her looks, she says a lot of men want to meet her, invite her to visit their country, and ‘make offers of hand and heart’.
Among those are ‘unusual’ requests to sniff her hair, which Alyona says she ‘laughs off’. She also explained that she doesn’t answer any messages from strangers ‘so as not to give a man hope’.
Alyona doesn’t experience any discomfort with her long hair, saying her body is ‘used to it’, although she says she does sometimes accidentally step on her locks which can be quite painful.
For others who might want to follow in her footsteps, Alyona stressed the importance of loving and protecting your hair in order to let it grow and stay radiant. ‘The main secret in long beautiful hair is a great desire to have such beauty,’ she explained.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).