Anime-style Colored Hair - A growing trend in RL?

[Triple_R]

Important disclosure: Over the past few months, I've been working in a sales position. Without getting into too many details, it involves me interacting with hundreds of people on a regular basis. Jobs I've had before this generally didn't involve that much face-to-face interaction with the general public, so it's possible I'm noticing something that's been common for years, but it just escaped my attention. Still, it's certainly different from what I recall seeing in University in my early 20s, so I'm inclined to think there has been a change, at least in my particular Canadian province, in the past 10 years. I'm curious to see if other people here have noticed similar changes themselves where they live.

The change I'm referring to is the following - Anime-style colored hair. In other words, hair that is obviously dyed red, blue, purple, green, or pink.

In my sales position, I've noticed that a significant number of women (though very few men) have anime-style colored hair. It's definitely a minority, but not a negligible one. I now see it more often than I do tattoos or nose/lip piercings. And, perhaps most interestingly, I've noticed it across all age categories (not just young women in their late teens, 20s, and early 30s). Recently, I saw an older women in her 50s (or older) with powder blue hair. I've also seen older women with a streak of dyed red or dyed green hair.

I wonder what accounts for this shift? Is it, in fact, tied to anime? Or is it some sort of new fashion coming out of Vogue magazine, and/or the fashion industry in general?

I've noticed that certain elements of anime have become more ubiquitous. I used to think that pretty much everybody put their real names/faces out there on social media, but recent browsing of Twitter has revealed that a substantial number of Twitter-users (including some prominent ones with followers in the thousands) use anime character avatars and pseudonym names, not their real name and an avatar of their own face.

Have certain elements of anime become ubiquitous in the west, and this helps to explain the colored hair I've noticed? In other words, are people influenced by the various anime imagery they encounter on the internet, and this causes them to make their hair unusually colored in real life? Or is something else driving this growth in colored hair? Or is this unique to where I live?

I'd love to hear other AS members' experiences with this.

Personally, I tend to to like the unusually colored hair, though one day at work it became so commonplace that I momentarily thought I was living in an anime.

[Urzu 7]

Maybe they just want senpai to notice them.

[Endless Soul]

As for me, I've been seeing colorful hair since the punk/new wave/goth scenes in the 80s. I think you're right though, it's a lot more commonplace now than it was back then. Most of the time I think it looks pretty nice and adds to the attractiveness, but sometimes...~shudder~

However, while anime may be a contributor, I don't think it's the main cause of the recent change in hair color attitudes. I think it's just becoming gradually more socially acceptable, and this is one trend that doesn't bother me much.

As for me personally, I don't think I'll ever dye my hair. I'm a natural kind of guy.

Endless "Colorful" Soul

[GDB]

Hair dying is less painful and less permanent than a tattoo or piercing.

But I agree with Endless. Of the colors you listed, purple's the only one I didn't see 10 years ago in high school. Though no one's sure why one of our classmates dyed his hair green. We don't think he knows either, since he never could answer (and not in a "not telling" sort of way).

[Dr. Casey]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Maybe they just want senpai to notice them.

'Senpai' being Triple, of course.

I can't draw comparisons from my own high school experiences because exotic hair colors were against the Dress Code (which I thought was overstepping its bounds since that effectively makes students unable to have exotic hair colors outside school, either, unless you're just constantly dying your hair to switch between school-appropriate and the-hair-color-you-actually-want versions; high school is 8 years behind me now, though, so there's been a lot of time to change that particular rule), and I don't know about current trends since I don't go out much, but this is an interesting thread. I'll keep an eye on it.

[Flower]

Originally Posted by GDB

Hair dying is less painful and less permanent than a tattoo or piercing.

But I agree with Endless. Of the colors you listed, purple's the only one I didn't see 10 years ago in high school. Though no one's sure why one of our classmates dyed his hair green. We don't think he knows either, since he never could answer (and not in a "not telling" sort of way).

You know though, I was dying my mohawk dark purple back in the mid 80's, but I did not see many others with colored hair around me. Green a little, some orange, and bleach-blond for black hair or black for blond hair...also primarily bound up with new wave, goth, punk "scenes".

Come to think of it I think I saw more people with colored hair at college or pro sports events than related to music scene type stuff...of course then they would paint their entire faces, chests, etc. as well, so....

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GDB

Hair dying is less painful and less permanent than a tattoo or piercing.

That's probably a factor, yeah. A less painful and less permanent way to try to stand out visually than the old standbys of tattoos and piercings.


Thanks to everyone for their replies. I hope this thread will generate some more throughout the day.

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Maybe they just want senpai to notice them.

I think this is most likely as well.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Well, at my uni lectures of the 50+ females in attendance roughly 1/4 has odd hair colours, blue, green, silver... and mixtures like red and black. It's quite an amusing thing to see. Most have long waist length hair, but there are those that have the short spiky styles.

[Endless Soul]

When I was in school there was this Filipina girl a grade under me, so of course jet black hair. However, she had a birth mark right on her temple and all the hair that grew from there was white. I'm sure she hated it, but I always thought she looked pretty cool with a long streak of white in all that black hair.

[LKK]

Full on anime hair color isn't common in my area. What I have noticed is an increase in unusual color highlighting in the past few years. Streaks or tips of pink, purple, green ... that sort of thing. I don't think it's an anime influence so much as a fashion or music video influence though. Now anime may be influencing the fashion & music video scene and vice-versa. It would be hard to track down the true instigator.

I know for me personally, anime has influenced my hair styling. I restyled my hair cut last spring to one that was influenced by one of the girls in the Bleach anime. (Of all places!) Plus I'm dying my hair in a two-tone manner with the light and dark looking somewhat like the shading seen in anime although the colors are a normal dark brown with red as the highlight. Looking at my hair, you wouldn't guess its anime-influenced. But I know it is.

I think I'm going through a mid-life crisis. I'm not emotionally ready to be old yet.

[Kafriel]

Weeeell, I remember a guy who wasn't in his mid-twenties and had pure white hair - the kind of white that would be near-transparent, both awful and weird :P

On a more serious note, yes, there are many more people walking around with dyed hair, regardless of age group but definitely tied in with their social standing. Such people are mostly encountered at the Mall (yes, we have THE mall, which is a ginormous mall that eats every other small-time business, but that's a topic for another thread), so it attracts high-schoolers and undergrad students. They are always in groups or at the very least couples and combine other kinds of trends as well, most remarkable being the fan hair (i.e. hair reinforced with clay and spread out from behind, like a peacock on your head).

I have yet to see any such thing in a working environment, however...and I frequent all kinds of shops.

[aohige]

Didn't we like

already go through this phase once in the 80s

[Sheba]

Rainbow hair look awful irl.

[BPD Renegade]

I didn't realize this was a growing trend everywhere. There were a lot of people (guys and girls) at my hs and undergrad who would get brown highlights, and a lot of girls would go from black to blond or vice versa, but there weren't really any outrageous colors. Lately, I've noticed a lot of bright reds on a lot of students at my new uni (almost all female), and a few weird colors here and there, but I assumed it was because it was in a less reputable area. Turns out it was because

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Maybe they just want senpai to notice them.

Who knew?

Some seem like the anime-influenced type, but I think the majority seem to be more of influenced by goth, heavy-metal, party-scene, etc. since most of the students who dyed their hair nonstandard colors wore black clothes, heavy black eyeliner, black, black, black.

One annoying thing about it are social conservatives. If I have to hear another lecture about how people with dyed/streaked hair are gangsters or bad influences...

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by BPD Renegade

Some seem like the anime-influenced type, but I think the majority seem to be more of influenced by goth, heavy-metal, party-scene, etc. since most of the students who dyed their hair nonstandard colors wore black clothes, heavy black eyeliner, black, black, black.

This isn't necessarily separate from anime, though.

At my current job, I met one young woman in complete goth attire. I chatted with her a bit, and we talked a lot about our shared anime fandom. She was a big anime fan, specifically of supernatural/horror shows like Higurashi.

There's actually a fair bit of "goth style" in anime shows as well (think of Rozen Maiden, or Kuroneko in Ore no Imouto).

[Jagger]

Funky dye colours are nice in theory, but when I've seen it on people it always looks like shit. Matte, dull and dead, looks like they're wearing a wig rather than natural hair. It seems we lack the "hair technology" to replicate the shine and depth of anime hair. Streaks of color is probably a much better way to go.

This looks like shit to me. Some might like it but not my cuppa tea.



This I like:

Elegant as fuck. She looks like she fits in normal society too.

[Triple_R]

^ On the one hand, I get what you're saying.

On the other hand, I can't help but think that the young woman in the bottom pic would make an awesome Sayaka Miki if she went all the way with the hair recoloring and made it solid blue. Mind you, she'd need blue contacts as well.

[Marcus H.]

The blue on the top pic would have worked if not for those piercings.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

The blue on the top pic would have worked if not for those piercings.

That and the super puffyness of the hair that makes it look more like a wig than an actual dye job. And eye liner that makes her look like a raccoon.