Can I ask if someone dyed their hair?
Beauty etiquette is swiftly changing
“I was walking with a friend the other day when someone stopped her to say, ‘Love your hair!’ followed by, ‘Is it natural?’ She went from zero to livid! She has beautiful platinum-blond hair, more notable suddenly because the odd compliment made her face go bright red. We walked off and didn’t talk about it, but it made me wonder: Is it rude to ask someone if their hair is dyed?” — Curious about modern hair etiquette
Society is slowly absorbing the message that it is never OK to comment about a woman’s body. That goes for guys, too. Just last week, actor-director Jonah Hill put out a plea on social media to get his fans to stop leaving unwanted messages: “I know you mean well but I kindly ask that you not comment on my body. Good or bad, I want to politely let you know it’s not helpful and it doesn’t feel good.”
Something about a man making this statement made it hit differently. His polite and clear message had resonance. We women have been begging for privacy and respect for our bodies for generations and it is now, kinda-sorta, respected (though we are still thought of as shrill if we bristle at a dog whistle).
Now hair might seem like a different, more innocuous category, but when you think about it, what is more personal than our hair? The expression “good hair day” is famous for a reason: when our hairdo is on point, we feel invincible.
Then someone comes along and punctures that invincibility shield with nothing sharper than a casual remark. We don’t know if our reader’s friend, above, had her fuse lit by a female or a male questioner, and it really doesn’t matter. We don’t know if she did or didn’t colour her hair (hint: it doesn’t matter). There is something about our relationship with our hair that makes us especially vulnerable to any criticism, explicit or implied.
About 70 per cent of North American women use hair colouring products. So you’d think it would be no big deal to admit to trying to improve on nature, right? Nope: colouring your hair is a private decision, information only you get to choose whether to share or not. Me, I’m fine letting the world know I go to the salon monthly to see my colourist, a soothing ritual, and the conversation provides more comfort and confidence boosting than any fresh colour. But, and here is my own particular quirk: it is also weirdly important to me to simultaneously want people to know I’m a natural blond. Why on Earth? There can’t still be a stigma around hair colouring, when so many of us partake in it.
I think it is down to the qualities we associate with different colours: blonds have more fun, are more vivacious! Redheads are firebrands! Brunettes are smarter and more mysterious! Yes, these are all meaningless, invalid, kneejerk clichés. And yet, the stereotypes persist.
For our expert this week, I chose a remarkable woman who has a very strong opinion on this subject. Liza Egbogah is an osteopath and myofascial release therapist, a chiropractic doctor and a former pharmacologist. As a healer, she has literally changed my life, but that is just her day job. Dr. Liza, as she is known, is also a fashion designer and entrepreneur, famed for her chic orthotic shoes and bags, and chronicled for her wardrobe. She is a posture expert on an array of Canadian television shows, including a five-year stint on “The Social.” It is in association with this last credit that she brings us her wisdom on how intrusively rude people can be about hair commentary and how it makes her feel.
Egbogah is Black and a Black woman’s perspective is a necessary element in any conversation about hair stigma, as the subject is even more loaded by the toxic legacy of prurient interest and microaggressions. Her situation is unique: Egbogah is a natural blond, and people seem unable or unwilling to wrap their heads around the fact that a Black woman could have blond hair. “In my parents’ village in Nigeria, about five per cent of people have blond or red hair. There is a recessive gene at work,” she explains.
“Women are just so policed,” she says. “When I appear on TV, for instance, people write in about my hair! What I should do with it, what they think is wrong with it. They go to the trouble to track me down on my Instagram just to tell me I shouldn’t have blond hair!” Infuriating, but as a female journalist who has been dragged around the block for my little photo at the top of a column, I can tell you that people often don’t get mad at you for what you say, they get personal instead with insults about your appearance.
That aggression is much more common with POC. “Telling a woman, especially a Black woman how her hair should be: that is a hostile take as far as I’m concerned.”
People assume, she says, that she “chose” the blond hair and then layer on their assumptions. “You are a doctor, why are you trying to look like a Barbie? They assume I must be less serious, somehow.”
Hair is a sensitive topic, and we never know what is going on in someone’s lived experience. “I have patients who have suffered hair loss through the stress of the pandemic. Patients undergoing chemo. They sometimes wear wigs. The colour is different on wigs. But who wants to be forced to discuss intimate health issues with a stranger who is curious about changes in their hair?”
Another old saying is useful here: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Compliments are great, we all need them and thrive on them. Giving a compliment makes both parties feel good. But “I love your hair” or “Your hair looks great” are both complete sentences, period. Spread the love, if you genuinely are taken with someone’s hair. But how it got that way? That’s none of anyone else’s damn business.