Meet the teenager with the worlds longest hair

Nilanshi Patel is nicknamed Rapunzel by her friends and it’s pretty clear why. The 17-year-old, from Modasa, India, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest hair on a teenager. She’s just smashed a new record at 190cm (6ft 2in) – but she set the previous one too. Her hair has grown 20cm since it was last measured in November 2018. She started growing it at six-years-old after a bad hair cut meant she decided she didn’t want to touch it with scissors again. She told AFP: ‘At six, I had a very bad experience at a local salon'. ‘Since then I have been apprehensive about cutting my hair. My parents accepted my wishes and now my locks have become my lucky charm.’ Her mane is washed once a week and then takes about an hour to comb and half an hour to dry. She usually wears it in a braid but does sometimes tie it in a bun to play table tennis. And to keep it in top condition, she uses an oil made with a secret recipe, created by her mother Kamini Benat. Her hair is longer than she is tall and she has to wear heels to keep it off the ground when she is wearing it down. She’s not quite got the record for the longest hair in the world though. That goes to Xie Qiuping in China, whosw hair was 18ft 5in when it was measured on 8 May 2004.