These months of social distancing and quarantine requirements have brought out an abundance of fun hairstyles and color combinations. 

Many people  are experimenting with bright, vibrant colors and expressing themselves through their hair.

Senior Blake Winters has had plenty of experience with hair dyeing. 

He has been doing his own since the fourth grade. 

“I was dying it blonde for a while, and then sophomore year I started experimenting with different colors,” he said. “I just wanted a drastic change and I didn’t really know what else to do.”

Winters has had every color imaginable in his hair; he has even extended his practice into dyeing fun designs onto his head, such as flames, smiley faces and polka dots. 

“I really liked the flames, but honestly, I think polka dots have to be my number one,” he said. 

When even that got a little boring, Winters started dyeing his mustache to match. 

Senior Jordyn Hartley has also experimented with the magical world of hair dye. Hartley said she started because she got bored with her natural color and wanted to spice things up a little. She has done pink, purple, blue, and green and red, which Hartley said was her favorite. 

“It’s just so boring without any color in it,” Hartley said. “You can use the fun colors to express yourself and make yourself look different from everyone else around you.”

Senior Amelia Reuter has been dyeing her hair since the eighth grade. Reuter said she just wanted to stand out and bring light to her differences. She has also had almost every color imaginable  in her hair. Her favorite colors are those she has now (bright pink with two white front pieces), or the light silvery purple she had back in eighth grade.

The trend of dyeing hair bright colors seemed to emerge last spring in the middle of quarantine when people needed something to do and knew they would not be out in public for a while. 

“We were all so bored and stuck at home,” Hartley said. “We would see videos of people with cool hair and clothes and get down on ourselves. Hair dye is such a cheap and easy solution to change something to make yourself feel better.”

More people than ever appear to have been diving into the brighter and more vibrant side of hair dye, experimenting with different color combinations and styles. 

Reuter said she thinks more and more people are experimenting with hair dye today because they have become more accepting of everyone’s differences. 

“No one really cares anymore about how different you look from everyone else,” she said. “Our differences are starting to be celebrated, rather than hated on.”

“I think it gives people a way to express themselves and stand out from everyone else,” Winters agreed. “I think quarantine definitely made a huge impact because we had so much time on our hands and we didn’t have anywhere to be, so we didn’t really care if it looked dumb.” 

Everyone has a horror story or two when it comes to dyeing hair; it is not going to come out perfect every time. 

“I’ve definitely had some really bad experiences,” Winters said.

Once he tried to dye it a light lilac purple and it ended up navy blue.

“When I went to wash it out, I cried,” Winters said. “Then I washed my hair exactly seven times to try and get as much of it out as I possibly could.”

Once it faded, Winters dyed it a different purple and ended up loving it, he said.

Hartley had a similar experience. She also tried to dye her hair purple, and it ended up fading to green, which she was not happy about. 

“For three months I couldn’t get green out of my hair, so I had to chop it off like a little boy for junior homecoming,” she said.

In regards to maintaining the color and keeping it vibrant, Winters recommends taking ice cold showers and re-dying it every two weeks or so. 

He also advised using gloves and choosing a good dye brand. 

Winters’ personal favorite is Good Dye Young, because it keeps hair vibrant, he said. It is vegan and cruelty free, he added, and it does not damage hair as much as some companies can. Good Dye Young can be found online or at Sally Beauty Supply. 

Hartley also recommends adding a small amount of dye to some conditioner. 

To keep dyed hair looking healthy, Reuter recommends finding some oil that works best for your hair type and applying some to the hair after washing it. 

She said to be confident when dyeing it for the first time and recommended to try having a “fake it ‘til’ you make it” mindset.