What do you think of people with colourful hair? As in different colour hair - pinks, greens, blues, purples, - big bright colourful hair

[StonePaperScissors]

I always had my hair in a natural brown until last year and I started getting it bleached and highlighted to get some fun bright colours in my hair. I don't want to be known so I won't give my hair colours away but I did a new colour recently and I love it.

I get two reactions.

1. where people love it
2. they hate it but mabe they won't say it but their tone and attitude - I sense something.

For me I think there is too much madness in the world and I am not hurting anyone and I need more bright and cheerful in my life.

Some people probably think I am a clown or something. I don't know. I really love colourful hair.

Yes, bright fingernails, bright clothes, it's cheerful!

I think it’s often used to signal how wild and wacky they are by people who don’t have a single original thought in their heads.

ETA: I myself had every colour hair until I hit my mid 20s, so I’m speaking as a former dyer.

I just thought it meant they wanted to colour their hair and have fun with it!

I was in a garden centre in the north west last week and there was what appeared to be an older ladies coffee morning in the cafe. Six of the ten ladies had coloured hair.

How interesting.
I started dying my hair dip dye purple or pink in lockdown to cheer myself up and whatnot it washes out.
5 years on I still do it because I love to see the colour and the one I use makes my hair shiny.
I currently have a nice turquoise that goes with my summer tops.
Never had so many compliments in my life about my hair.
DM and df lost their hair when they had cancer.
If I don't like it I can cut it off as it will grow back.
I'm not a lesbian myself.I don't have tattoos either.I just like colour and wear colourful clothes.
If I see colour in someone's hair I think they are more creative and open minded and less judgemental.

Mine is lightly tipped not all over.🩵🩵

Rangyajerodung I agree.
Colour for fun and myself.

Enjoy! I think it looks cheerful ☺️

This exactly. I think it’s looks dreadful.

It is this. Ignore the mean judgemental toads on this thread 😆

It usually looks absolutely terrible, especially if it's green or blue or multi-coloured. Greens and blues are particularly bad because they don't suit anyone's skin tone. I do quite like a really vibrant, all over red or pink though. It can look amazing if done well and providing the person is stylish, edgy and fashion forward.

But your hair colour IS part of your identity. Along with the style, and the clothes you wear, and the way you speak, its all part of who you are.

I just never think it looks good. The second it starts growing out it looks awful, especially turquoise for some reason . And it generally starts to fade really quickly and looks bad. So I just don’t like it. I don’t care a jot if someone wants to do it but it sort of signals them out as someone with very different tastes

I find it always makes the hair look terribly dry...never seen it on anyone where the hair looks in good healthy condition.

Green is the only colour that has ever actually suited my skin tone!

Your son has SEN, no? I hope people aren’t judgemental to him as you are. Yikes.

I don't quite understand all the posters saying it's judgemental to think teenagers with blue hair often have SEN. Firstly, SEN is not an insult. Secondly, teenagers have always formed in-groups with clothing/hair as a marker. Think goth, emo, punk. It's hardly new.

I and a few other posters on this thread are teachers who regularly interact with hundreds of teenagers. We have noticed a trend - the kids with SEN are often the ones who choose to dye their hair. Calling us judgemental for simply observing the truth is bizarre.

I do understand where you're coming from. However for me at least, my hair colour would come close to last in the list of various things that make up my identity. I really don't see it as important and would never describe it as a previous poster did ("part of my identity" etc). That's why I said it's strange to me.

Saying I find it strange doesn't mean I think it's wrong though.

Because this line of "just the facts" thinking is disingenuous. It looks logical, but it's not. "More teens with SEN (that I know of) have blue hair than the teens without SEN" does not lead to: "Teens with blue hair are more likely to have SEN".

We've seen this kind of thinking in other circumstances, with more sinister consequences. For instance, people of colour are over-represented in certain prison populations, compared to their representation in the population as a whole. Does this mean people of colour are more likely to commit crimes?

It seems pretty clear (to me at least) that there are many other societal and historical factors at play in that instance. But you can bet that it's been used as a justification for increased stop & search rates on people of colour, and the like.

Ok, I'll change it for you. Teens in my school (with 1000s of students) who have blue hair are more likely to be SEN than not.

In fact, off the top of my head I can only think of a few SEN teens without dyed hair and they're ones from more conservative families where it would go against their culture.

Sure, if I see a student with blue hair walking down the corridor I can't know for certain they're SEN. They're more likely to be SEN than not though and I really don't understand why you find that offensive.

It's like if I see someone with a rainbow pin or rainbow themed clothes/hair. I would assume they support the LGBT community or at the least aren't homophobic. It's not a wild leap.

Edited to add: I'm talking very much about teens here. I wouldn't make the same assumptions about adults with colourful hair. Each generation has its different fashions and in-groups.

First thoughts would be positive, because all the people I know with bright coloured hair have been kind, thoughtful, funny and intelligent, and I wouldn't mind being more like them. I certainly enjoy being around them.

Also I'd be a bit jealous because I've wanted to do this myself for years but not really had the confidence or money to try it. As I'm getting older a bit more of the "fuck you" vibes are kicking in, which my former wannabe-perfect, highly religious and conservative self on her way to an ED (thanks 90s) but with "normal" coloured hair (coloured hair being 'against God') absolutely welcomes with a vengeance. It really feels like my younger years were spent being groomed into the acceptable image of a virginal young wife and model Christian woman (ie no voice of her own and with a tight control exercised by men in power over what I wore and what I looked like), so bright coloured hair for me could be a very visceral form of taking the power back. Maybe one day I'll get there. And I certainly won't be doing it for the attention, but rather for the boundary it draws in myself, for myself. My body, my choice.

I wouldn't give other people's opinions a second thought though OP. Life is far too short to bother with people who'd write you off because of your hair.

I’m calling the poster out who I quoted for their hypocrisy when they have a Sen child themselves. I find it highly concerning that as teachers you don’t see anything wrong with false labels. Yikes. I guess they allow anyone to be a teacher these days. Feel sad for your students.

Again, SEN is not an insult. It's concerning that you're acting as if it is.

I'm 40, I've had pink hair for the last 5ish years (it's also been purple, blue and green) and it's shaved on the sides - oh the horror 😱
I'm not a lesbian
I don't believe in Trans
I'm not even a little bit politically inclined...

Shit, do I have to dye my hair back to brown?!?!

@StonePaperScissors I do get loads of compliments on my hair tbf - but they could be lying I suppose 😂

@Thatsalineallright Ok, I'll change it for you. Teens in my school (with 1000s of students) who have blue hair are more likely to be SEN than not.
In fact, off the top of my head I can only think of a few SEN teens without dyed hair and they're ones from more conservative families where it would go against their culture.
Sure, if I see a student with blue hair walking down the corridor I can't know for certain they're SEN. They're more likely to be SEN than not though and I really don't understand why you find that offensive.

Not offensive, just not a safe ground on which to base a wider generalisation, for the reasons outlined above. All you can really conclude from that is that the SEN community at your school has a culture of dyeing their hair bright colours.

The reason I'm posting about it is because this sort of "logic" can lead people to feel justified in making assumptions that actually are offensive, as we've seen upthread – they're "void of personality", "red flag for mental illness", weirdos, TRAs, "I'd write them off" (and that's just from a quick scan of the first 100 posts, there's loads more!).