6.5 feet! Meet Indian Rapunzel who held Guinness record for ‘longest hair on a teen’ for 3 years

Nilanshi Patel, once held the Guinness Worlds Records title for “longest hair on a teenager” for three years until she decided to end the winning streak there. She unsurprisingly earned the moniker “real-life Rapunzel” for the elusive feat.

Nilanshi, from Modasa, Gujarat, made the Guinness Book of World Records in 2018 for the first time. The then-16-year-old’s hair measured 170.5 cm (5 feet 7 inches). That’s literally longer than I’m tall.

The unusual length of hair only gained more inches by the time she approached her 18th birthday. By how much, you ask? In July 2020, her uncut hair measured a full 200 cm or an incredible 6 feet 6.7 inches.

It seems like Nilanshi might retain that Guinness title for a while, irrespective of her adult status.

How did she end up with hair that long? Possibly longer than herself?

It started out as a coping strategy after an undesirable haircut when she was six. “I got my hair cut, a really bad haircut. So, then I decided that I won’t cut my hair,” she told Guinness.

“I decided that when I was six and have not cut it since,”

How Nilanshi managed her flowing hair, with the hairdresser out of the question, is anyone’s guess. Washing her hair was a task she undertook once a week, according to Guinness. After that, it took half an hour to dry and an hour to comb.

But she had embraced her impressive peculiarity and even called it her “lucky charm”.

“People think that I face so many problems with my hair, but I don’t face any problems, I do sports and all the things with my hair. It’s a lucky charm for me!,” she said.

“I style it as a long braid or as a bun on the top of my head. When I am going to an occasion, or when I am playing table tennis, I bun my hair on my head so that it is comfortable for me.”

D-Day

12 straight haircut-less years and three Guinness World Records later, the desi Rapunzel decided it was time to “give something back” in 2021.

However, she wasn’t immediately clear about what she would do with her hair, oscillating between the thoughts of auctioning it or donating the hair to a charity or a museum.

Nilanshi’s mother, Kaminiben, was of the opinion that her astonishing feat was worthy of a place in a museum so that it could inspire people.

Eventually, her hair was cut and it weighed 266 grams. The girl was blindfolded, before being led to the mirror and she loved her new look.

The mother took a while to get on with it but eventually found it beautiful.