Would you not love to change the color of your hair? It can lift your spirits, make you feel rejuvenated, and even help you revamp your entire wardrobe to go with your shiny new hair. You can now dye your hair any color you want, including pink, blue, and all the colors of the rainbow, or do gorgeous balayage techniques. But when did everything begin? It turns out that for thousands of years, ancient women have been coloring their hair! Here’s the history of hair color you had no idea about.
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptians loved to change their hair colour, but mostly did
it when the hair was no longer on their heads. Probably a wise choice as
most dyes were toxic one way or the other and natural ones washed off
pretty quickly. Around 1500 BC the ladies of Ancient Egypt coloured
their hair red, blue, green, and even created a beautiful yellow colour
using gold powder. Henna was used to hide those pesky grey hairs we
still don’t like so much today.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greeks were largely into dark hair colour and used a
specially created permanent dye to achieve the desired effect. Later
they came up with a less toxic concoction that used leeches to create
the dye. Leeches were put into a lead vessel where they underwent to
process of fermentation, turning into a dye. Much later ladies started
yearning for lighter tresses and came up with a more pleasant mix of
gold flakes, pollen, olive oil, and lemon juice to highlight their hair.
As you know, lemon juice does work as a natural lightener.
The Roman Empire
Blonde hair got a bit of a bad reputation during the Roman Empire as
this was the time when prostitutes had to lighten their hair as an
indicator of their occupation. It was a requirement enforced by law!
Most of them just used yellow wigs, but others created a special dye
made from ashes of burned nuts and plants to lighten their hair. Gauls
and Saxons from the same time period (around 300 BC) coloured their hair
all kinds of bright colours mostly to intimidate their enemies during
combat.
1500s
What about redheads, you might ask? Well, it turns out they didn’t
exist until the Dark Ages, when the appearance of redheads was first
documented. It’s believed that red hair colour is the result of a
genetic mutation, which happened in Scotland. Well, they do have lots of
redheads there! Because this hair colour was so rare and unusual,
redheads were pegged as witches for decades until Queen Elizabeth I took
the throne rocking her red hair like a real queen. Everyone had to
accept that red hair colour wasn’t connected with the Devil after all.
1600s
During the Renaissance dyes went a little bit further and became more
chemical-based and less natural. Delights for Ladies, a curious book
that contained all kinds of beauty recipes and household concoctions,
described a dye named Oil of Vitriol that could lift the colour from
black to chestnut. It was advised to avoid this dye touching the skin
and today we can easily understand why as this ‘dye’ was actually
sulphuric acid.
1800s
We should all thank William Henry Perkin, a chemist from England, who
unknowingly revolutionized the hair dye process as well as the whole
colouring industry. He accidentally invented the colour we know today as
Mauveine, while trying to synthesize a cure for malaria. While that
didn’t go as planned, his discovery changed the textile colouring
industry and allowed ladies to create permanent colours without
destroying their hair. Mauveine is still part of modern dyes, but today
it is known as para-phenylenediamine.
1900s – 1950s
In 1907, Eugene Shueller, a French chemist, came up with a dye named
Aureole. If the name sounds familiar, well, it’s because it later
transformed into the world known brand – L’Oreal. It was the first ever
commercial highlighter. In 1931, Howard Hughes released the movie Platinum Blonde,
creating a huge hype around platinum blonde hair. Everyone wanted to
look like the leading lady Jean Harlow! In the 50s women could finally
start lightening hair at home with the invention of one-step hair dye
that didn’t require a time-consuming procedure in a beauty salon. Miss
Clairol Hair Colour Bath was developed by another famous brand named
Clairol and provided a bleach-less hair-lightening procedure.
1960s – 1970s
While in the 50s women were still shy about colouring their hair and
preferred to keep it a secret, things became less strict in the upcoming
decades. Funny enough, until 1968 Americans had to describe their hair
colour in passport. It turned into a useless piece of information as
everyone was dyeing their hair. In the 70s L’Oreal came up with their
legendary slogan ‘Because you are worth it’, starting a new era of open
hair colouring that wasn’t frowned upon by the society. Now women owned
it fully! It was also the time when hairdressers introduced the
highlighting method using a cap.
1980s
You might have already experienced the modern hype surrounding the
80s balayage lightening technique. Basically it’s a freehand bleaching
style that results in very natural-looking highlights and creates a
beautiful look if done properly. Not many beauty salons offer this
procedure and even less hairdressers know how to do it beautifully –
that’s why it has become so popular! This was also the time when the
foil method of lightening hair was introduced by some hairdressers. It
made the whole bleaching process faster and easier.
1990s
The hair foil highlighting method becomes more elaborate and we see
hairstyles develop accordingly. At that time it was very cool to create
high-contrasting highlights like we’ve seen on young Britney Spears.
Colour blocking was also introduced with really heavy dark strands and
really bright lighter strands of hair. Everyone was crazy about this
look when Christina Aguilera rocked it back in the day!
2013
Around year 2013 we’ve seen a huge spike in popularity of the ombre
hair colouring technique. It has been around for quite some time, but
that was definitely the year when celebrities went all kinds of crazy
over it and used it in flattering (or not really) hairstyles. Drew
Barrymore and Beyoncé were among those celebs that did their best to
pull off the ombre look.
2020
Here we are in the year 2020, when people are combining all the
techniques to create various hair styles. There is balayage, freehand
hair colouring, lighting hair using a special cap, there is also some
colour blocking happening, as well as foil highlighting to create some
chunkier hair colour styles. Ombre is still very much popular, but is
performed mostly with brighter colours like blue, pink, and purple.
There’s the E-Girl style of painting hair, which involves contrasting
hair strands that frame the face, while all the others remain neutral.
There is also galaxy hair, tortoiseshell hair, opal hair, and the
fascinating comeback of grey hair that has women all over the world rocking their natural silver colour!