A History of Long Hair Contests
When the 20th century was young, women from all over the western world began to cut off their former so luxuriant manes. Suddenly long hair became a rarity and there were contests held to display really long tresses in this changed world.
This is a short and incomplete history of long hair contests since 1910 until now.
Contestants in Berlin/Germany about 1910.
A long hair contest in Los Angeles in the Twenties.
Antaninas Vitkauskaites-Bacienlienes holds the national Guinness
record for the longest hair in Lithuania (2,15 meters) till to date.
Lydia McPherson won the State Fair contest, conducted by the
Sacramento/Calif. Chamber of Commerce, simply with the length of her locks in
the Twenties. She is shown here with musical comedy star Peggy Chamberlain.
Skuldfried Sjorgien with her Guinness Record hair of
more than 3 meters in the Twenties.
Hanka Kelter, a Polish born model who staged in a side show
of Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Baileys circus during the Forties. Her gorgeous dark brown locks were 1,50
meters long.
Irmgard
Symanzik, a German
lady from Guetersloh, held the first German Guinness record over years in the
mid-seventies with her 2 meters+ hair.
Mary
Tucker (born 1923)
from Long Beach/California won the contest of longest hair of the magazine
“National Enquirer” 1981. Her hair was 2,20 meters long. This photo is by Stan Shuttleworth, the late Californian
photographer whose pictures are among the best and most impressive ones in long
hair photography.
Soon
Stephenson from
Kansas City was among the winners of the same contest. Her 2 meters hair made
it for the second place.
Candace
Westholm from
Annapolis/Md. was the winner of the third place with her 1,90 meters mane.
Marie-Odile
Lefebvre won the
French Guinness record in 1981 with her 1,80 meters long mane.
Cindy
Christian (born
1957) from Lansing/ Michigan is one of the most beautiful ladies in our
gallery. Her exquisitely long blonde hair of more than 1,80 meters brought her
a Guinness book mention in the mid-eighties.
Georgia
Sebrantke, a Greek
born lady who lives near Bremen in Germany held the German record of longest
hair since 1983 till the mid-nineties. Her hair grew over the years to more
than 3 meters in length.
Hiroko
Yamazaki from Japan
with 2,60 meters of hair.
Celine
Dion-Dupont, (born
1949), longest hair in Quebec/Canada 1986. Her hair was 1,55 meters
long, three centimetres shorter than her height.
Judy Todd
(born 1953) from Tulare/California received a 200 $ prize as the grand winner
of the 1986 “National Enquirer” contest of the longest hair in America. She is
only 1,56 meters tall but her hair reaches a length of more than 2,20 meters.
Thelma
Schultz-Holman, a Dutch
lady from Hertogenbush, holds the Guinness record in the Netherlands since 1987
with a hair-length of 2,15 meters.
Group
of winners of a
British contest in 1989.
Balbir
Kaur, the beautiful
winner of the 1989 “Long & Lovely” competition of the fashion magazine
HAIR. Her 1,50 meters tresses are a rarity in Great Britain, but not in her
Indian home country, were the Sikh people never cut their hair. Kaur is a
typical Sikh name and means “Princess”.
Dorie
Geronimo, a
Philippine born woman in England won another HAIR contest with her mane of 1,70
meters of black hair.
Darla Reed, another Californian lady with 2 meters+ hair.
Diane
Witt from
Worcester/ Massachusetts held both the American and Guinness World record as
well from 1989 to about 1996 with her red-brown mane of 3 meters+ hair.
Diane
Witt is the living
Rapunzel of our days.
More contests and records on page 2
