To think ‘mousey’ hair is the worst hair colour to have?

[Marnie56]

I am one of these people with naturally ‘mousey’ hair - until I was about 10 I had light golden blonde hair and as with a lot of people it gradually got darker. Since I was about 14 I’ve had highlights religiously every few months. So my hair is still ‘blonde’ but only because I spend so much money on it!

I absolutely hate the fact that without highlights I would be this ‘nothing’ colour - it’s not a nice brown/brunette colour and it’s not blonde. I don’t even know what I would look like if I let my highlights grow out and I never got them again but I can’t imagine it would look nice!

I know a lot of people get some sort of colour in their hair, balayage etc but most people would still look fine if they had their natural hair colour - I think all hair colours look nice apart from this weird mouse/dishwater.

Anyone else feel like me? Am I just destined to have to get highlights every few months forever so I look remotely nice!?

If you have let your hair go ‘natural’ and it is mousey and looks good I would be very interested to see it! I don’t think I can think of any celebs with that sort of hair!

@VaggieMight thank you! Yes it is my natural hair, I have never dyed it as my mum used to tell me as a child that it would damage it. I'm glad she did as it's now the only part of me that doesn't look like an old lady!! In my language my hair colour would be described as "light brown" which I thought is what mousey was from reading through this thread. Still not sure what mousey exactly is then, but definitely don't think mousey hair is a bad thing!

I too have mousy hair and have been having highlighted since I was 16 - blonde suits me, dull does not and it costs me a fortune

I just assume most ‘blondes’ are really mouse-y. So there must be a lot.

Mine is very similar. Throughout my childhood, and my teens, I had blonde hair. But continuing through the years, it's got darker and darker. For years I tried to convince myself I was "dark blonde", but I'm really not. It's brown.

But I'm blonde in my head!

I do let it grow out to my natural shade every couple of years (I keep my hair short), but then I go back to dying it to a mid-blonde shade.

I'm actually going to re-dye my hair again this Sunday! I had planned to do it right as lockdown happened, but then thought "hardly no one will see me!" so decided to save it!

But no-one has to spend a fortune on blond highlights. You could just use a £5 box dye in a nice brown/red colour every couple of months instead.

My cousin lived in Australia and her mum was Swedish. She had the most beautiful natural blond hair, like the singer in ABBA.
I was a bit jealous as I sat having my hair pulled through a rubber cap with a hook for hi lights ( pre foil invention days!) to achieve something that looked a bit lighter to my 'mid brown' !

Mine was naturally blonde and I didn't colour it until my forties, during lockdown it was horrible iron grey, where I'd hoped for white.

Mine is mousey, I have learned to love it. The key for me is wearing muted colours. I was part of a FB group for a while with style type talk even though I'm not generally interested in fashion. They were big on colour seasons and I find if I wear clothes in the soft summer colour palette that really accentuates my natural colouring and looks nice.

It does mean avoiding harsh colours like black, bright red, yellow etc. Instead I wear navy, burgundy, slate blue, mint green, forest green, blush pink, dusty purple etc.

Nooo ds has mousey hair and it's gorgeous (biased, me?)
I think of it as tawny or sandy. He'll probably dye it when older like his dad, but I always preferred his natural hair.

I had mousey hair and dyed it chestnut or auburn for years. It worked and looked natural as I have freckles.

I used to henna it until there was too much grey and it would look pink! Then I started reacting to dye and now it's natural "grey" / blonde and looks highlighted bizarrely (but nicely).

I always thought mousey meant like a grey colour. Any shade of brown is fine, much nicer than dyed hair. I hate it when women have streaks or you can see their roots, I dont think they realise how horrid it looks.

I was going to embrace the Grey and I will one day , but not yet!
I know it shouldn't matter but it does look better with bit of a colour on it.

Do you remember a few years back when they were trying to push "Bronde" as the new hair colour?

Personally I like mousy but I think it's quite common for people to have a clash of cool mousy hair with warm skin or warm mousy hair with cool skin and both can be a bit draining. So you just need to work out skin type and tint your hair a bit to match even using the old school camomile tea method.

Do you mean this @Marnie56 ? I think it’s a beautiful colour.

Mousey is a lovely colour. My kids have it and I am jealous.

Mouse and proud of it. However I confess to pretty ‘useful’ natural blonde highlights which are genetic.
My lovely old dad stayed mousey with strong blonde streaks to his death at a good old age.
Stand proud, mice !!!

I think it's just the word ' mouse' that winds me up.
(I used to hate people saying it about my hair colour!)

Henna? Cheaper and much less damaging compared to highlights. Lush have a few different DIY bars, but there are other more specialist options if you do some online searching. I find it adds a nice earthy tint/depth and have had compliments on my hair colour since ditching blonde highlights and going for a more natural/tinted option.

I think also it feels meh in the UK (and probably other northern European countries) as it's so common here for blonde children to age to brown/ dark blonde/ mousy but worldwide it's actually quite unusual. In other countries I've had a lot of compliments on my natural shade from people who don't make the dishwater/ mouse/ common association and just see a light, gentle shade which suits some people really well (personally I feel I need a bit of brightening up).

I love my dark blonde hair. Although I did once get told that it’s called rat coloured in Italian. I like the fact that it’s darker at the roots and underneath and lighter on top and at the ends. So it looks different if up or down.

haha perhaps exclude Italy from my comment above then!

Both my DC have what could arguably be called mousey hair, but it's not quite the same. DS1 was born very fair, and his is now a truly neutral, cool, almost greyish shade of light brown. Children have described him as having grey hair. I think if I was in his position I would be reaching for the lemon juice, as he's still got very fair skin, bright blue eyes and almost invisible eyebrows, so fair hair suited him very well, but he's not very interested in his appearance at all and seems content with what he's got. DS2's hair is exactly the same darkness but it's warmer somehow and I actively like it. Some people think they can see a hint of red in it (mine is ginger). I can't, but it is definitely a very rich colour and it suits him (he's got greeny grey eyes, very dark eyebrows and skin that tans fairly easily). So I think mousey hair can look great or boring depending on the exact shade and how well it suits the rest of the person's colouring. I like LionelRichTea's picture a lot - I think maybe it's her dark eyebrows that help to make it look right.

Incidentally, I was recently playing around with an app that lets you see yourself with different hair colours, and light brown (they didn't actually call it mouse but it kind of was) was the only one I liked on me, apart from a warmish light blonde. It might me think I might actually like to have that colour hair one day for a change. I love my natural colour but the one disadvantage of it is that because it's quite unusual in itself, there's not much incentive to change it, so I've missed out on all the fun of having different colours. Possibly one of the greatest advantages of light brown hair would be being able to take it in almost any direction - you could go darker, lighter, red or an unusual colour and they'd probably all look reasonably natural because you weren't at any one extreme to start with.

I hate my mousy hair too. I’m very tempted to go blonde but I have dark, nearly black eyebrows, brown eyes and skin that tends towards olive rather than peaches and cream.

@bluetongue

My "peaches and cream" complexion doesn't look nice with blonde hair, I just turn into a ghostly blob of white. 😅

Is anyone willing to post a pic of themselves with mousey hair? Rather than some supermodel