ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Why dyeing your hair with crazy colour hair dyes is a fun thing to do

Updated on June 19, 2013

Make sure you stand out from the crowd

If you want to stand out from the crowd and express yourself in a really colourful and flamboyant way, or if you just fancy having some fun and a new look, why not think about using semi-permanent crazy colour hair dyes? They come in an amazing range of colours.

Brightly-coloured hair became all the rage in the Punk-rock era with many New Wave and Punk stars and their fans sporting spiky Mohicans and cropped hair-styles in shades of red, pink, orange, yellow, green and blue – all the colours of the rainbow.

The dyes are easy to buy and use. They are cheap enough and come in little pots as creams and gels you simply comb through your hair. You need bleached hair though really for the colours to show up the best.

Bard of Ely with green beard

Green Beard
Green Beard | Source

Why I use colourful hair-dyes?

I am a singer-songwriter and like to express myself in an artistic way and draw attention to myself on stage. I also need to get as much publicity and exposure as I can and I find having coloured hair and/or beard gets results. Photographers want to take my picture, and people who see me performing remember me for my look as well as my songs.

I really got started using semi-permanentt hair dyes back in 2003 when I was a compère and performer at the Green Man Festival in Wales. Knowing I would be on and off stage all day I thought dyeing my goatee bear green would be ideal for the festival and to express my image as an artist with a lot of interest in nature and the environment. My green beard was an instant hit and I decided to keep it.

People I met back in my normal off-stage life in Cardiff liked it. Teenagers on the housing estate I lived on would give me the thumbs up and say how “Cool” they thought my beard was.

I was using Apple Green as the shade and have bought pots of dye from the Directions range by La Riche. Because my hair and beard are going grey I didn’t even need to bleach my hair and whiskers first to be able to use the dyes. This is one advantage of getting older I thought!

When I moved to Tenerife I became even more adventurous and have had my hair dyed purple whilst sporting a green beard, have done all my hair and beard in green or in turquoise and have also used Spring Green that actually looks more like a shade of blue.

I started getting called Green Beard or “Barba Verde” or Spanish. I ended up with a colour photo of me in each issue of the Tenerife Sun newspaper in which I had a regular column. I was shown with my green beard and a caption saying: “Poet, musician and amateur naturalist STEVE ANDREWS”. This established clearly who I was and made me more of a local celebrity.

Portrait of the Bard of Ely

Bard of Ely portrait by Paco de Colmenar
Bard of Ely portrait by Paco de Colmenar | Source

Portraits

A Spanish artist called Paco de Colmenar had seen photos of me with purple hair and green beard and when I had it all turquoise. He felt inspired to use these images to paint portraits from and made an excellent job of it. I use these pictures he created as further eye-catching and memorable publicity for me.

They say a lot about me as an artist and a person. They show that I am eccentric, artistic and a colourful character who is not afraid of being in the public eye and who likes to express himself.

Toyah - I want to be free

Billy Connolly and other celebrities who use hair dyes

The comedian, singer and actor Billy Connolly started dyeing his goatee beard purple. I never did mine that shade because people could say I was copying him but I still get people calling me “Billy.”

Musician, producer and songwriter Mark Hudson is also famous for his appearances on the X Factor helping Sharon Osbourne as a Vocal Coach. He has had his beard in all colours possible and was given the nickname “Weird Beard.”

Singer, actress and TV personality Toyah Wilcox, who came to fame with her hit songs back in the 1970s Punk and New Wave scene is another celebrity who has often dyed her hair in flamboyant colours.

In the 1980s and the time of the New Romantics, Boy George came to fame as the gender-bender singer of Culture Club. George often dyed his hair in bright colours too like the flaming crazy colour red he had it in at the time of the band's hit War Song.

Mark Hudson (Weird Beard)

Songwriter Mark Hudson
Songwriter Mark Hudson | Source

Advantages of semi-permanent hair dyes

Besides being easy to use they are equally simple to undo if you want to revert to your natural colour or change to another shade. To apply them in the first place you just comb or brush the dye through your hair and leave it to dry. You are supposed to rinse the hair then but I usually don’t bother because it makes the colours a lot lighter if you wash your hair. This shows how easy it is to get rid of the colours by shampooing them out, although this may have to be done several times. When the dyes have sufficiently faded you can put a darker colour on top or can try mixing and making your own shades.

And of course, these dyes can just be used to colour streaks or highlights in your hair. The choice is yours and there are very many dye colours to choose from.

Culture Club (Boy George) - The war Song 1984

Bring a smile into someone else’s life

I find that all sorts of people appreciate seeing a man with a brightly-coloured beard. People smile and may even ask if they can take a photo or pose for a picture with me.

Last year, while waiting for a flight to the UK, I had a whole bunch of Spanish schoolchildren who wanted to be in a photograph with me. It starred with just three boys but soon there were girls and more boys and the lad that was taking the shot had to go back a bit to get us all in the photo.

When I finally got on the plane the air hostess complimented me on my beard too.

When I arrived in Cardiff I was walking down a busy street and a homeless man begging at the kerbside called out: “I like your beard, mate.” I had brought a smile to his face despite his poverty.

That is the thing about using semi-permanent hair dyes, they are fun and they let us bring some colour into an often dull and miserable world!

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)