You get home from school, bummed over a slightly lower-than-usual test mark and lack of attention from your peers. You feel isolated, craving human admiration, so you hop back into a janky Honda Civic, gearing to roar the vehicle down the main road. Speeding down this familiar street, adrenaline races among your veins, exciting you for the dramatic change of colour to your hair.

If you haven’t done it, you’ve wanted to do it. Dyeing one’s hair gives us a sense of a fresh start. Gives us a new picture frame to border our faces with, outlining our smiles while portraying your current favourite colour. Whether you’re going from black to blonde (pray for your ends), or green to purple, the act of dyeing hair is a commonly known form of expression.

Personally, I’ve dyed my hair from dark brown-perhaps black hair to blonde balayage, then even blonder twice, then salon-dyed red (didn’t work), then self-dyed red (did work), now black. I claim to be an experienced hair dy-ee and hair dye-er, for I dye my own regularly, and I’ve dyed other’s several times. I feel as though my experience gives me authority to review the topic. From my point of view, I believe that there are three common reasons why we dye our hair.

Reason One: Seek of Attention

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my hair dying journey, it’s that every time you do it, people notice. They point out the significant difference of presentation, most of the time saying “It looks so good!” or something like “It suits you so well!”. This is why we oftenly dye our hair consistently and continuously; when everyone has habitualized themselves with the image of you with whatever shade of hair, you crave the validation once again. This reason is most commonly used by those of us who are self-conscious, lacking admiration, or just straight up self-centered. Although it seems like the these attention seeking dyers are pathetic, it’s still important to congratulate them for their courage used to pull said colour off.

Reason Two: Therapy

What’s worse than staring down your own reflection in the mirror, hating the person looking back at you for their boring appearance, and lifeless locks? After crying your poor eyes out, you decide you’re a bad b**** who needs a fresh start. I know I’ve been a sucker for this, impulsively changing my physical appearance, searching for myself in the process. I know it sounds dramatically absurd, but my red hair helped me enhance my budding identity. It’s the same reason why we often cut a significant amount of hair off after a breakup, we want a new look to separate ourselves from our past. Although dyeing hair heals us temporarily, I still do not advise a physical appearance change as therapy.

Reason Three: Boredom

I’m sure all of us (dyed hair or not) have experienced sensation of apathy while gazing into our own reflections, yearning for something new. Now of course boredom associates itself within Seek of Attention and Therapy, but I set aside for one particular reason. Now I currently consider myself someone who is rather mentally healthy, and seeks no validation from others, meaning when I dye my hair, it’s purely out of interest for something new, combined with a craving for a new colour. This leads me to believe that it is completely possible to be solemnly bored, wanting to replace your current image.

I’m left here pondering these ideas, thinking about how each hair dyeing must originate from one of these causes. Of course when it comes down to it, dyeing hair is a very exciting time (assuming it turns out well) and should be celebrated no matter the cause. I encourage all of you to try it, to feel that adrenaline rush through your veins, to feel the buzz I feel when my locks shift shades. Happy dyeing!