Blue Hair and Pronouns: The Correlation between Unnatural Hair Colour and Confidence [post]

Rin Chang
2022 unpublished
In September 2020, I dyed my hair blue. After dyeing my hair, I found that I was more confident. It sparked an interest in whether other people also felt more confident with unnatural hair colours (colours that do not fall under the umbrellas of natural red, brown, black, or blonde i.e., green). There has been some research done on women who dye their hair natural colours and tonnes of research on other people's perceptions of naturally coloured dyed hair. However, there is almost no research
more » ... unnatural hair colour, let alone people's perceptions of themselves with unnaturally coloured dyed hair. This study set out to explore whether dyeing one's hair unnatural colours positively impacts confidence. I conducted a Google Forms survey and sent it out via social media and word-of-mouth. My responses total 29 with a variety of ages, gender identities, and locations. My survey asked five questions: (1) What colour(s) have you dyed your hair? (2) What age range did you start dyeing your hair? (3) Why did you start dyeing your hair? (4) Did it positively affect your confidence? (5) Is there a colour you noticed had the most positive impact? The survey indicated 93% of respondents had an immensely positive impact on confidence after dyeing their hair an unnatural colour. I hope other researchers take this and do their own research, as my limitations due to being a high school student meant that I could not conduct research as thoroughly as I wished.
doi:10.31235/osf.io/yq24w fatcat:glgznur6bnbeho2sjtpad45wam