Monday 9 April 2012

A Curious Case of Hair Colour - Body Issues

I have always dyed my hair every colour under the sun (please see embarrassing photos below), but until I decided a couple of years ago to go back to my natural state of blonde I truly didn’t realise the difference that hair colour has on how people treat you.
I find being a blonde to be a negative hair colour, as a lady I want to be treated as one but as a blonde I find that most of the men I encounter like me because I’m blonde, blue eyed etc... not because I’m alright to talk to and am moderately intelligent.
I want to find out whether this is true for all hair colours, in the matter of all things LYYB it simply wouldn’t work without an experiment, so I have dyed my hair red and my eyebrows to see if I evoke different reactions and as ever at the end I will some up my findings. I’ll also be speaking about previous hair colours I've used in the past.  


Red Head
I was a red head for a couple of months, dying your hair red is a massive effort, It runs out so quickly and costs a small fortune to keep looking lovely, so is it worth it?
I think although superficially the hair looked fabulous, I think what I felt inside was not so good, I did get what I suppose you could class as more positive male attention. Gentlemen started to approach me more, I could even go as far to say the calibre of men I was attracting were of a higher standard. The conflicting mental issue that I was having was because I started to feel like people didn’t like the real me. The real me is blonde. If men are treating me different because of a hair colour then surely they’re not as amazing as I first thought.
I have to say that even women I encountered during this time treated me differently, as a blonde I find women can sometimes come across like they hate my guts... as a red head not so much... I didn’t realise hair colour made this much of a difference. It was like all of a sudden I became less of a threat. 



Black Head
When I was younger I had black hair... SHOCKING. People used to think because I dyed my hair black I must’ve been an Emo or a Goth. You’re wrong. I dressed quirky, but I always have regardless of hair colour. People felt the need to brand me with a label so they could deal with my ever changing strange look.
I was once told that I couldn’t have a job unless I changed my hair colour from black to something more natural because I was deemed ‘unapproachable.’ Which is ridiculous, I was a normal eighteen year old.
Don’t even get me started on how people used to treat me, girls my age thought I was a weirdo and boys my age pretty much thought the same thing. All this because of a hair colour?


Blonde Head
As I stated earlier I sometimes find being a blonde has a negative impact on my life.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that do honestly assume that because of my hair colour I must be an idiot. I’m clearly not. I’ve found it to be a nuisance at times when I want to blend in, when I lived on my own I would constantly be harassed by men shouting such creative things as ‘Hey Goldilocks you can sleep in my bed’… I think that’s my personal favourite. Having blonde hair is like an invitation for abuse... blonde jokes, misinterpretation, perverts and people honestly believing due to hair colour you’re a slut.


I do however believe through all this negativity you have to be yourself, so after having black, red and blonde. I’ll stick with the blonde this time and wont be so influenced by the way that people treat me.
If you don’t like the blonde hair... You know what to do.

LYYB x

1 comment:

  1. Your red hair was deeeeeecent but as you rightly point out you have more interesting facets than a hair colour. While visual impressions count it is the substance of someone that leaves the lasting impression. Therefore I worry about a generation of girls who spend more time tending to their outward image than their substance as a person. When the looks fade what is left? It's a bit like Formica, looks alright on the surface, but when you scratch through the paper thin plastic on top there's only chipboard underneath, and nobody likes chipboard, we like wood. Grown cut and crafted over time with care and attention, not swept of the factory floor, held together with glue and covered in plastic to give the impression it's something it's not.
    Good article D

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