Crop Shop

After three months of fundraising, the big day came on Tuesday. Tina marched off to Pablo Alvarez' salon on Bridge Street to get her lovely locks lopped for charity.

Tina had originally set out to raise £5,000 for cancer charity Brainstrust. If she achieved that, she promised the shave her head completely! Perhaps that worked out as reverse psychology (plenty of people offered her money to keep her hair) because Tina missed her target. However, she still raised a whopping £620 and managed to help raise Brainstrust's profile with her exploits.

Fortunately reporters from the Hampshire Chronicle were on sight to record Pablo's handiwork.

Thanks to everybody who donated money to Tina's fundraising! See the results here.

Jane Moore and Shaven Heads

Jane Moore is a columnist for The Sun.

Recently, she wrote about Britney Spears and her rehab misadventures, describing the Princess of Pop taking shears to her head as something "even the most amateur of psychologists could see was a cry for help."

It seems Jane shares the opinion of just about every British woman I know - that a woman shaving her head is TROUBLED. There's a huge stigma attached to it.

I only discovered what a stigma a shaven headed woman can be when Tina and I went about trying to raise money and publicity for her charity pledge for brainstrust. She's promised to shave her head completely bald if she can raise £5,000.

Universally, people were horrified by Tina's pledge.

How could she think of shaving her head? She'd be hideous! Disfigured! My father described it as "self mutilation." But it's only hair! Hair grows back (well, unless you have alopecia like poor Gail Porter.)

This stigma is horrible when you think about the people who don't have any choice in sporting a bald scalp. The reason Tina volunteered to shave her head was because many cancer sufferers lose their hair. Chemo and radio therapy can make it fall out. Surgery for a brain tumour involves shaving a 'working area.'

These poor women have to go about with a shaved head and the universal response they'll get from people is that they look like a freak. How sad is that?

In actual fact, a beautiful woman is still beautiful with a shaven head. Just look at the statuesque Sigourny Weaver when she shaved her head for "Alien 3," or Natalie Portman getting a skinhead look for "V for Vendetta."

Tina happens to be a very beautiful woman, so I have no problems with her shaving her head. With her big brown eyes and high cheekbones, she'll still be as beautiful to me even without her hair.

Please visit Tina's pledge page to donate money to her worthwhile cause - and find out how the fundraising is going at her blog.

Tina's fundraising page.

Tina's blog.