To think that calling hair 'mousy' is an insult, not a description of the colour

[JustT]

My daughter has beautiful long hair that I call 'golden brown'. It was blonde as a baby but has got darker as she's got older and she's now 8. She's always been really happy with her hair colour and I'm pleased because I remember my own mum putting lemon juice and 'sun-in' in my hair when I was a kid to desperately try and keep it blonde for longer. I want my daughter to be happy with her hair as it is. So I was a bit upset when she was having her hair cut last week and the hairdresser said that her hair was 'mousy'. This doesn't sound like a colour to me, it actually sounds like an insult and a way of saying that it is an unattractive colour. Since then my daughter's actually said that she doesn't like having 'mousy' hair and that it isn't a nice colour. I'm so upset as she's never expressed this before and I want her to have confidence in her appearance. Not sure what to do now or whether to speak to the hairdresser about it. Surely she should know that this isn't a nice way to describe a little girl's hair, or even a neutral description of colour. It's an insult right?

Now 'mouse-faced' would be an insult. Cute on a mouse but not so on a person.

Has she picked up from your reaction that it's not an nice colour? I've never heard it used as an insult to be honest. I just thought it was neither a brown nor a blonde - somewhere In between. How does she even know what mousey means?

It think you are seriously over-reacting and over=thinking this, tbh.

And your DD takes her cues from you, so of course she's now feeling bad about it.

It's a phrase many people use to describe particular shades of hair, not quite blond, not quite brown.

Get a grip.

Mouse hair is a brilliant base for hair dye which is a bonus for adults. It lightens really easily and also looks amazing with highlights and suits a range of brown colours.

Mavis makes a good point about redheads. Mousey hardly has the negative connotations that "Ginger" seems to attract.

yanbu - it has clearly had an effect on your daughter's confidence. I think you have a lot of other choices for colour descriptors and could say that to the hairdresser (possibly choose a different hairdresser?) Good hairdressers help their clients feel confident and beautiful!

Mousey is usually used in a dismissive sense but I don't know why. It really just means pale ash brown / taupe kind of colour and I think it's lovely. Both my hair and most of the walls in my house are mousey!

It makes me think of the opening lines of Life on Mars "it's a god awful small affair, to the girl with the mousy hair".
I wouldn't say it was an insult exactly, but it does have kind of dowdy connotations if you know what I mean.

When I was at school we once had to pair off in a lesson and write a description of whomever we were paired with. Height, eye colour and so forth.

The most common hair colour was light brown, and I could hear kids all round the room mentioning mouse as the colour of their partner. My partner then gives me a long hard look and said that my hair was sort of darker than mouse. So after some consideration she noted it down on her page as rat. Which made me laugh then and still does now

YABU

I honestly think you're making just a big a deal out of your daughter's hair colour, as your Mum made out of yours, OP.

Chill out.

She's a hairdresser and that's a perfectly normal way to describe a common shade of brown.

I still don't get why an 8yr old would suddenly get upset about this, unless perhaps she's picked it up from you.

This happened last week and you're still fretting about it?

I describe my own natural hair colour as mousey. It's just a phrase, perfectly normal and not insulting.

I'm sorry, but I think you're overthinking this massively.

I think it would be better if people just kept their mouths shut!
So much shit spews forth without much thought!
Couldn't she just have cut her hair and stayed quiet?
A few bland pleasantries possibly?

As the proud owner of a head of mousy brown hair, I can say I've only ever heard it used in a mildly insulting way, as a synonym for boring. You want to describe my hair in a neutral, non-insulting way, call it what it is, which is light brown.

My mum alternated between calling my hair 'mousey brown' and 'dishwater blonde'. I'm pretty sure neither was very complimentary.

I really don't think it's worth "complaining" to the salon about it. How would that even go?

Boss: Ladies, we've had a complaint about Janice.
Stylists: Oh no! What's she done? Sliced off a client's ear with her scissors? Melted someone's barnet off with peroxide?
Boss: No. Much MUCH worse. She used the word "mousy" to describe a girl's hair...

I am the girl with mousy hair. Or at least I was until the silver streaks appeared.

It's a description. Not an insult.

I got 'dishwater blonde' as well! I hated that. Didn't mind mousey though, it sounded quite sweet to me.

@ 'rat', Weird.

My daughter has light brown or dark blonde hair, wouldn't bother me or her if someone described it as mousy. I think you're way over thinking this.

My dds was blonde and went mousy brown, its not an insult.

As someone whose hair was regularly called 'mousy' as a child I can say it is definitely intended as an insult, it's saying it's a boring colour. As an adult (I've never dyed my hair) my hair has been called all kinds of colours from blond to red to brown, these days only my family call me 'mousy' when they try to put me down (when I lived somewhere hotter in my 20s and my hair went blonder in the sun my mother accused me of dying my hair and didn't believe me when I said it was the sun ).

I love my dark blond/light brown/slightly reddish hair but 'mousy' is not a nice way to describe someone else's hair. In the same way as ginger is not as nice as red or frizzy is not as nice as curly.

I refer to myself as having mousey brown hair. I never thought of it as an insult! I think you are way overreacting op. Your daughter takes her cues from you.

I have mousey hair, I've never been insulted by someone calling it that - it's just fact. I'm not suggesting that mousey hair is necessarily something to aspire to, but I definitely don't think it's an insult.

I'm mousey brown/ dirty blonde too and don't like how both of the colour names basically mean it's crap

First photo that came up with I typed mousy into Bing, its a nice colour.