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It took five years, grew 18 inches and cost his
parents £4,200 in shampoo, conditioner and detangling spray.
But after being mistaken for a girl and called Rapunzel, five-year-old
Rean Carter has made his first visit to a barber’s shop.
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He went to his uncle’s aptly named hairdresser’s, Fellaz in Sunderland,
to ask for a short back and sides because he was being teased at school.
She added: ‘He looks totally different. I took him into school and all
his teachers saw him and said ‘Wow, Rean, don’t you look fantastic, what
a gorgeous little boy you are’.
‘All of his friends were crowding round him. He was getting quite a bit
of attention.
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‘He’s over the moon. What’s more, he had the best night’s sleep.
‘Usually, I tie it back with a bobble but during the night it gets in
his face. After getting his hair cut he slept like a log.’
Rean, who is donating the money he raised for having his hair cut to
Sunderland Royal Hospital children’s unit, said: ‘I’m so pleased. My
hair looks great. My teachers will recognise me.’
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Matters came to a head when Rean returned home from school and told his
mother, a party organiser, that he had been teased at school for looking
like a girl.
His hair was so long it tumbled below the line of his belt and had to be
tied up at school for health and safety reasons.
‘I was doing the ironing and he began to cry,’ said Miss Smith, from
Hylton, Sunderland.
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‘He told me some of his friend had been nasty to him
at school. Up until that point I just couldn’t bring myself to take him
to the barber’s.
‘He had such long and beautiful curls I just couldn’t do it.
‘But as soon as it started affecting Rean I knew we had to do something
about it.’
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Miss Smith, a mother-of-two, said her son inherited his curls from her
partner, Neil Carter, 48, a painter and decorator who once sported a
pink Mohican.
Now she faces another dilemma – should she let her other son,
two-year-old Regan, grow his hair or head back to the barber’s shop?
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