Coloring your hair can be a fun way to express yourself or update your appearance, but should we be worried about the effect of changing our natural hair color? Changing your hair color can be a big commitment, so it might be helpful to weigh out the pros and cons before proceeding.
The Pros and Cons of Hair Dye:
Pros:
- Hair Dye Can Give You An Outlet To Express Yourself
- Hair Dye Can Give You a New Look
- Hair Dye Can Add Dimension To Your Hair
- Dying Your Hair Can Increase Your Confidence
Cons:
- Dying Your Hair Costs Money
- Dying Your Hair Requires More Frequent Upkeep
- Hair Dye Is Customized Hair Damage
- Your Options for Hair Styles May Be More Limited
Dying your hair can have many advantages that make it appealing, but one can’t ignore that it doesn’t come without a cost. Before taking the big step to coloring your own hair, consider the benefits and downsides to the process.
Depending on your own personal goals, the cons may outweigh the pros or it might be the other way around. Read on to find out more and decide for yourself whether you’re ready for a new look for your hair.
Table of Contents
Pros
Pro: Hair Dye Can Give You An Outlet to Express Yourself
The way we present ourselves to the world is essentially an expression of ourselves. We carefully select our clothes each day in order to reflect our personal tastes. We hope that people will see us in the way we wish to be seen. One easy way to make a statement before we even say a word is to change the color of our hair.
Sometimes, we might change our hair color in a subtle way. You might be born with naturally dark brown hair, but feel like your aesthetic looks and feels better with a caramel brown shade. Someone with auburn hair might select a slightly more vibrant shade of red. Hair dye doesn’t have to be extreme in order to feel like it is an expression of ourselves.
If you are looking to make a bold statement, hair can be dyed to be vibrant, unnatural colors such as neon pink or pastel lavender. These colors can definitely result in creative expression, channeling your inner artist and letting you feel more confident. One sure-fire way to feel like more of a unique individual is to choose a bold color that speaks to you.
Pro: Hair Dye Can Give You a New Look
Sometimes it can feel good to have a style reset. Maybe you are just getting bored with your look or perhaps you have a big event coming up. Either way, it can be fun to have the option to change your appearance. One of the quickest and easiest ways to do it is by dying your hair.
Perhaps you are going to be a guest at a wedding or you have an upcoming high school reunion and you want to turn heads. Dying your hair can completely refresh your look while still seeming effortless.
Updating your appearance by customizing your hair to fit your mood can give a real confidence boost. It feels good to look in the mirror and feel pleased with what you see. Dying your hair can give you an easy way to modify your appearance to fit your current attitude.
In addition to generally fading, your hair will continue to grow after you get it dyed. This means the hair at your roots will grow in with your natural color. Depending on what color you dyed your hair, this transition from dyed to natural hair can be quite stark! As such, you will likely need to have root touch-ups every couple weeks or so, even if you don’t dye all of your hair every time.
Pro: Hair Dye Can Add Dimension to Your Hair
If you feel like your hair looks flat and unremarkable, hair dye can help add a subtle dimension that gives it a new life.
Dying your hair doesn’t have to be a complete change in color. Instead, you can segment your hair and select pieces that will be dyed a shade lighter than your natural color, creating highlights. The same process can be used to dye sections slightly darker than your natural color, creating lowlights.
Creating highlights and lowlights can give hair a beautiful, unique dimension that can be flattering without being a dramatic change.
Pro: Dying Your Hair Can Increase Your Confidence
Sometimes, you just need a little pick-me-up to reset your attitude. Looking good can help you feel good, and dying your hair may help you feel better about your appearance. Dying your hair can be an easy way to increase your confidence.
For example, many men and women don’t like the idea of their hair turning grey. For many, it is a sign of increasing age and carries a connotation of senility. It can result in you feeling unconfident or nervous in new social settings or at the workplace because you may not want other people thinking of your age. Perhaps you worry younger people won’t take you seriously.
One easy solution is to dye your hair. In this case, it might simply be dying the grey hairs to match your normal hair color. It is subtle and no one else may even notice it, but that’s the point. It can give you the ultimate confidence boost by letting you feel yourself.
Cons
Con: Dying Your Hair Costs Money
Whether you are getting your hair dyed in a salon or using an at-home kit, the process will inevitably cost money.
Salon services will on average cost more, but will usually yield more consistent results and more customizable colors. Some styles require a complicated blending of colors, such as Ombre styles, which are much easier if performed by a skilled professional rather than at home.
The more complicated the dye job, however, the more expensive the visit will be. Keep in mind that usually dying your hair does not end in one visit, either. In order to keep up the color and touch up natural roots, regularly scheduled visits will be required. Each one of these visits will have a set price associated with it. Over time, it can really add up.
At-home hair dye kits are cheaper, but results will vary based on the quality of dye purchased and your skill at applying it. Home dye kits are also much more likely to use harsh chemicals that can damage hair. Also, if not careful, hair can be seriously damaged due to improperly following directions for home dye kits.
Con: Dying Your Hair Requires More Frequent Upkeep
As mentioned earlier, dying your hair comes at the cost of requiring more upkeep than natural hair. For someone looking for a low maintenance hairstyle that doesn’t require a touch up every six weeks or so, dying the hair may not be the best choice.
When first colored, the hair will be vibrant and shiny. Inevitably, however, the color will begin to fade and become dull with repeated washes. After a while, the color may no longer look the same and you might not still love the look.
Using high heat can result in further weakening your hair, which means more hair breakage (split ends) and overall thinning.
Con: Hair Dye is Customized Hair Damage
No matter how you look at it, dying your hair will, in some way, shape, or form, result in damaging your hair. This damage can be minimal and there are steps that can be taken to help repair the hair and keep it healthy, but it still occurs, nevertheless.
Hair dye involves chemicals, usually ammonia and peroxide. The chemicals are necessary in order to make the color able to penetrate into the shaft of your hair. By elevating the pH using chemicals, the outer cuticle of hair relaxes and allows the dye to seep into the shaft. However, the cuticle isn’t meant to be relaxed, so this is already a form of damage.
Peroxide is then used to destroy the current color of your hair so that there is essentially a blank canvas for the new color to take hold. Peroxide is very drying, and if left on the hair too long it can give hair a texture like dry straw, or even worse it can cause hair to fall out.
So, while you are achieving a custom look, you are having to damage your hair in the process. But by being careful about the frequency at which you dye your hair, using quality dye, and using products to help hydrate and repair your hair after chemical treatments, you can help reduce the damage caused by dying your hair.
Many hair products today are designed with color processing in mind, which means you can help reduce the damage caused to your hair by using products that can help restore some of the hair’s nutrients and hydration. There are even color depositing shampoos and conditioners on the market which can allow for more subtle shifts in hair color without the chemical intervention of a traditional dye.
Con: Your Options for Hair Styles May Be More Limited
Keep in mind, you might love your new color after getting your hair dyed, but you may not be able to rock the same hairstyles as with natural hair. Color treatments can be harsh, and so you often want to limit other insults to the hair which may damage it further.
Styling tools that require a large amount of heat can be a no-go because hair can be left dry and brittle from dying, and heat can cause further unfavorable damage. Curling irons, flat irons, and even blow dryers should be used infrequently, and when used should be ideally kept on lower heat settings.
