why do gingers dye their hair?

lilymclyntyre95 · 28/12/10 - 19:22

I just saw a GMTV interview with a 14 year old girl who dyed her hair dark,tinted her eye-brows and got her make-up tattooed to her face. She said in the interview she hated having ginger hair. I know nobody can speak for her only herself,but why she dye it. In fact,why any gingers dye their hair dark? It's a nice colour,nowt wrong with it!

In my school,me and me mates on Facebook,we do join FB pages that say things like "like this if you're not ginger" and pages like "the awkward moment when a ginger speaks without permession" but we have a friend who is ginger who finds it all in good fun and we like blonde pages the same way,it's joking and all in good fun so it's in no way an attack on people with ginger hair to make them feel bad,it's joking. We did a debate on this in school and people in our class did point it that it was joking and totally not intented to cause offence and the peole with ginger hair joked about it even more than us,lol

Liking pages like that mean nothing.

While I condone liking pages on harmless making fun of gingers(because it's there for a harmless joke) what I don't get is when people with ginger hair like Sophie or Nicola Roberts(even though she's now ginger again) dye their hair dark or blonde or whatever. Is it the media or are they insecure. My friend, who I mentoined in above paragraph, is well pretty.All the boys at school fancy her and she's really pretty so she doesn't have an issue and likes those pages herself!

When I was listening to Sophie's interview,it made me sad. The way she was speaking,it didn't sound like she was bullied,more so that she was insecure in her appearance,because she did say that she hated having ginger hair and when the radio interview said "you dyed your ginger hair" she said "Oh yeah!" then went on to say she hated it.

I don't know why people with ginger hair dye it. I suppose some people are extra sensitive about ginger jokes,even though that's not the case with my friend. Facebook page likes mean nothing to us and if somenoe actually said something to her about having ginger hair in a non-jokey way I can say for certain me and our other friends would stick up for her,because we'd know that it was not a joke.

I think there's nowt wrong with ginger hair,it can look really nice on some people like my friend,who has really vibrant dark ginger hair,exactly the same shade as Isla Fisher's

What's your opinion on this?
Why do you think people like Sophie and Nicola dye their hair? Is it insecurity or something else?

user1234567 · 28/12/10 - 19:33

I have dark hair and as a teenager I used to dye it ginger as I've always loved ginger hair. I tried to dye my eyebrows ginger too but that didnt work out too well

I gave up after a while as my hair was too dark so I had to use permanent dye and it's a pain in the arse waiting for it to grow out and just ruins the hair if you put too many permanent dyes on top of each other.

About three years ago I got a full head of blond highlights. I'd had it done before that and loved it. This time though I went to a different hairdressers and it got totally ruined. I don't know if the idiot doing it used too harsh a dye or left it in too long (probably both) but it was starting to break and fall out, even as she was washing the dye out :eek:

It completely destroyed my hair. I have curly hair which is naturally dry and any of the blond bits which didn't fall out resembled something you'd expect to find on a scarecrow. It's taken the last three years to recover.

I think I'll stick to being brunette from now on and just put up with the airhead jokes and wear a wig if I fancy a change for a night out

funkycub · 28/12/10 - 19:36

I actually really fancy gingers!

youngswede · 28/12/10 - 19:41

maybe it is insecurity in some cases, but there are a lot of people with brown hair who dye it blonde simply because they just want to change their hair colour. for example, I had a friend back home who changes her hair colour every 2 or 3 months and she was naturally blonde. One colour she had once was ginger, but you could tell it was not natural.

There are always people who dislike their own colour hair, mine is blonde, but i have often considered changing it to brown and actually went to the salon when i first moved to England because i wanted to fit in with the English people, but the hairdresser actually persuaded me to stay blonde after she said how nice it looked, so I did! and since I have been told that, i have never wanted to have it changed.

When it comes to the facebook pages you mention, there are always people who do not see it as a joke and who would get offended. One would never be allowed to have similar page aimed at members of a certain race without causing anger. Sometimes these jokes against gingers are meant with hate.

An interesting debate, i look forward to see more opinions

Stupid_Head · 28/12/10 - 19:44

A lot of people rip the piss out of gingers, not even in a jokey way I've been friends with a couple who would get shouted at from cars when walking down the street just because of their hair.

Unigal07 · 28/12/10 - 19:45

I'm a brunette but dyed my hair ginger at school. Then got picked on for being a voluntary ginger

Oh well, c'est la vie. I think ginger/red/auburn whatever you want to call it hair is the most beautiful colour

susan24 · 28/12/10 - 20:06

Us gingers are in the minority and do tend to get picked on and bullied. It's the way of the world unfortunately. Personally, I think they are jealous

One boyfriend actually told me to dye my hair brunette - I changed him instead. Now I'm older I get compliments on my hair colour. But most importantly, I'm happy with it and sod what anyone thinks.

youngswede · 28/12/10 - 20:33

susan24 wrote: »

Us gingers are in the minority and do tend to get picked on and bullied. It's the way of the world unfortunately. Personally, I think they are jealous One boyfriend actually told me to dye my hair brunette - I changed him instead. Now I'm older I get compliments on my hair colour. But most importantly, I'm happy with it and sod what anyone thinks.

Good for you!

KnowAll27 · 28/12/10 - 21:29

Stupid_Head wrote: »

A lot of people rip the piss out of gingers, not even in a jokey way I've been friends with a couple who would get shouted at from cars when walking down the street just because of their hair.

susan24 wrote: »

Us gingers are in the minority and do tend to get picked on and bullied. It's the way of the world unfortunately.

<snip>

From personal experience both of these are true so it's no wonder that many people feel insecure and dye their hair. When I was younger I got no end of abuse because of my hair colour, and always from people who I didn't know. It's not good for your confidence when you're a teenager if people who you don't know call you names or make fun of you because of your hair colour, whether they mean to offend or not.

Aside from that reason, there's also quite a large number of gingers who dye their hair, not for any deep psychological reason, but purely because they fancy a change just like anyone else! We change our clothes on a regular basis - changing hair colour is just an extension of this.

notfussy · 28/12/10 - 22:07

My daughter has the most beautiful hair and if she even attempts to dye it I will not be happy. I get my hairdresser to try to copy the colour but they can't get close to the beauty of natural red hair.

Gill P · 28/12/10 - 22:37

Three of my four grandchildren have red hair in varying shades. My son and daughter-in-law also have/had slight redness in their hair (my son is greyish now). My mum had red hair when she was young. I have brown hair as does my sister but I would have loved to have had red hair.

zx50 · 28/12/10 - 22:52

SOME ginger haired women can be beautiful. Freckles just make them even more beautiful.

Sara Webb · 29/12/10 - 00:02

I dyed my hair various shades of red, included ginger, for years.

[Deleted User] · 29/12/10 - 00:45

zx50 wrote: »

SOME ginger haired women can be beautiful. Freckles just make them even more beautiful.

Ahhhh, a face without freckles, is like a night without stars!

Janette800 · 29/12/10 - 01:05

I buy red head dye the colour is very vibrant and I love it:)

[Deleted User] · 29/12/10 - 01:53

I dyed my hair, before being ginger as I just had enough with boys younger than me like 13 saying ginger when I walk past. These would be different boys, even girls who I don't even know. And many of my friends would forget I had ginger hair and would start saying how they would hate to have ginger hair!

Diamonds1 · 29/12/10 - 01:57

I always go for gingers, I have lots of ginger in my family (I'm brunette) and married a ginger and all I got whilst pregnant was "you do realise, you have a good chance of having a ginger baby!" cheek of em! as it was, my son was not ginger haired but does have the freckles of his dad. But seriously, ginger is absolutely gorgeous in my opinion.

dorydaryl · 29/12/10 - 02:11

Another ginger hair lover, here. Puts my (naturally, it's highlighted atm) dull dark brown mop in the shade.

performingmonk · 29/12/10 - 02:12

Ginger hair is great (been in love with 2 redhead girls in my life, I love them!) but, sadly, a lot of jokes are made and a lot of people like to take the piss.

As for dyeing it. Just think if Daniel Radcliffe had never dyed his hair (he is naturally ginger), he would never have made all those millions. That's an extreme example, sure...

Helbore · 29/12/10 - 02:31

performingmonk wrote: »

As for dyeing it. Just think if Daniel Radcliffe had never dyed his hair (he is naturally ginger), he would never have made all those millions. That's an extreme example, sure...

He could have been Ron instead

Personally. I love red hair. Ginger girls are the best. Give me some Scottish or Irish ginger girl any day of the week. Sexiest women alive!!

[Deleted User] · 29/12/10 - 12:42

I'm another who used to be bullied at school for being of ginger descent (more auburn really) and as much as you think it's all a bit of fun OP, people do get upset by being slagged of, even if it is in a jokey way.

I have dyed my hair for years, not because I am ashamed of my hair colour, but because I find my natural auburn colour fairly dull. Last year I was getting blonder and blonder, and now I have gone back to being darker, more red than auburn tho, because as others have said, it;s impossible to dye your hair that natural colour, and no way in hell am I waiting for 2 years to grow it right out to it's natural colour!!

zx50 · 29/12/10 - 14:29

I like women with genuine ginger hair.

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Hot-Rod-isla-fisher-776637_1280_720.jpg

I think she's genuine anyway.

Delboy219 · 29/12/10 - 15:22

I'm a scottish ginger male. But with a difference. My hair is ginger but my eyebrows are dark brown. Plus my eyes are brown and i'm told thats rare for a redhead.

I get people thinking i dyed my hair ginger. I tend to answer "if i was going to dye it, do you really think i'd dye it ginger???"

Delboy219 · 29/12/10 - 15:29

I just remembered a wee story from my days at primary school. It must've been primary 6 or 7.

There was this girl called Mhari. She was the cutest girl in the class. She hardly noticed me all through school but she did talk to me on occasion, which was nice.

One day i overheard her talking to friend a of hers. They were talking about who they fancied. I heard them speak about me!

Mhari said "i think derek is quite nice....if only he didn't have ginger hair"

Later, to add more insult to injury, she got off with my best mate.

Elphie_Lives · 29/12/10 - 16:08

I daily get abuse shouted at me in the street just because of my hair. And its not even from young teenagers, its from people in their 20s. But for every insult I get, I have someone say I have "gorgeous hair".

I wouldn't change my hair just because people are idiots, but I can see why others would.

[Deleted User] · 29/12/10 - 17:45

I never get insulted about my hair. Even in school apart from the odd comment from the bitchy, jealous girls (I didn't take notice).
My hairdresser loves me and I get loads of compliments.
I love my hair and can't imagine myself changing it. I can take a joke about my hair but I also dish it out too.

Here is a question, do you (or your ginger friends) fit the stereotype? You know, the temper etc.

Hey there!

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