“I want to put streaks of a pale sea foam green and a pale lavender in my hair. I can't seem to find a dye in either color. Does anyone know where I can find these dyes? Or can you tell me how to lighten darker dyes?” I read this thread on a fashion forum and thought to myself I could make a small fortune if I start producing temporary pastel hair dye! Well, I am a bit involved in going to college and not in the market to go into business I gonna throw my million-dollar-idea out to you!
Before you start mixing cationic dye with a water soluble anionic polymer in your basement (two key ingredients in temporary dye) allow me to explain the trend.
Lets start with Faran Krentcil, 28-year old digital director at Nylon magazine, who dipped her shoulder-length locks into a bathtub filled with a lavender tint (Virginia Snow, for anyone brave enough to copy her) and took a major plunge—she dyed her hair grey. Krentcil describes her new look as a “rock ’n’ roll fairy princess,” but someone less rad might describe her it as a granny-grey. Grey hair used to be associated with the distinguished women of "The Red Hat Society." Grey, a shade always coiffed in time for the blue-plate special supper, right? Wrong, in an odd turn of events, a clique of fashion “it girls” in their late 20 are dying for grey!
The trend of course trickled down from the runways: Chanel, Giles Deacon and Rodarte. Spring runway models had bright-- and thank goodness, temporary-- streaks of color added to their hair. Backstage at Chanel here is a photo of designer Karl Lagerfeld with model Heidi Mount.
Since I saw a gal rocking the look on the street yesterday I think the trend is about to go mainstream.
In the Comme des Garçons Spring 2010 Collection, the models wore wigs that looked like cotton-candy pinned into poodle-esque hairdo. Some wigs were baby pink others in gentle green and yellow—whatever the soft shade the statement was bold without being punk—an interesting evolution of colored manes.
“These women are showing that they have the money and the inclination to make gray a fashion statement,” said Rose Weitz, a professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University. Professor Weitz, the author of “Rapunzel’s Daughters: What Women’s Hair Tells us about Women’s Lives,” was interviewed by New York Times reporter Ruth La Ferla for an April 11th story on the trend. Weitz suggested that to dye one’s hair gray is to flout one of fashion’s last taboos. Since fashion praises youth it is a subversive move to dye your hair a shade that we assoicate with the old.
Famous pint-sized blogger Tavi is seen standing behind a Jackson Pollock painting where she asks: "how perfectly does my hair that is in an in-between stage and a mixture of gray match this painting?" Clearly she loves her silver pixie cut, and she even documented the dye-job. I got the photo seen above of her under the lamp from stylerookie, Tavi's blog. She is reading "Girl Power" while the bleach takes hold and it got me thinking. Isn't this whole trend somehow connected to feminism? If you dye your hair a subversive color it is about standing out, being your own woman (and that woman may get approval from girlfriends) without getting caught up in looking "date-able."
