The
real life Rapunzel: 4½-ft
tall eight-year-old has 3ft-long hair
She is just eight years
old, but Bohdana Stotska’s hair is nearly as long as she is tall.The
schoolgirl’s three-foot mane takes two hours to style - but she refuses to have
it cut.Bohdana, who cites fairy tale character Rapunzel as her inspiration,
said: ‘I love my hair because nobody’s hair is as long as mine.‘I made the
decision to let it grow when I was four. I said: “Mum, I don’t want to cut it
anymore.”’Her mother Olga now has to spend half an hour a day combing and
plaiting her daughter’s golden locks so they do not get tangled.But the
39-year-old banker’s biggest chore is washing Bohdana’s hair once every 10 days
with a strengthening shampoo and conditioning treatment, which takes two hours.Olga,
who moved to London from Ukraine last September, said: ‘We don’t use chemicals,
we use simple stuff for babies.‘But letting it dry naturally is impossible. The
biggest expense is my time.’Olga said her daughter’s luscious locks were not as
popular in their native Ukraine. ‘But her classmates here got really excited
and now Bohdana describes her hair as her “key feature” and tells me not to
touch it,’ she said.‘She wants to be popular, she wants to be the centre of
attention.’Privately-educated Bohdana, who speaks Ukrainian, Russian and
English, said that although some people are jealous of her hair, most people
admire her looks.The four-and-a-half foot student said: ‘People tell me they
want to have hair like mine and my friends try to copy me.‘In Christmas cards
my classmates tell me how much they like my hair.‘They always want to touch it
or plait it.’Olga, who lives in Old Street, believes the length of Bohdana’s
hair will soon surpass her height, as she refuses to get it trimmed.‘Her hair
grows quicker than she does,’ she said. ‘Bohdana is tall for her age and grows
nearly one centimetre a month but her hair seems to grow at an even quicker
rate.’Olga said one of the reasons she has let Bohdana grow her hair is because
of a dream she had ‘When I was pregnant I closed my eyes and
imagined my daughter and she had very, very long hair, just like Bohdana has
now. They looked exactly the same,’ she said. But Olga is hoping the novelty of
the attention will soon wear off. She said: ‘Bohdana has a strong character but
I’m hoping after some time she’ll say, “I don’t want any more attention mummy.”‘She
will stop at one point, we don’t want her looking ridiculous. She will have to
grow up as a normal kid.’
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