Nope. I don’t mean punkers, and I don’t mean little old ladies.
I mean in comic books. Why do (or at least when I was a kid) a lot of presumably dark-haired characters have blue hair. I think even Superman might have had blue hair for a while. Was there something wrong with black?
You have to use something other than black in the hair to show texture or the hair looks flat. If you try to use gray or white, the person looks like their hair is turning gray. If you use brown, it looks like (dark) brown hair.
I’m just gonna take a stab at this one…
Dark hair, bathed in naturally exuded oils (or in days of hygiene products gone by, Brylcreem) make a pretty good reflective surface. Like oil on a puddle of water, the thin layer of oil refracts the higher frequencies of light less than the lower frequencies, giving hair a bluish “sheen.” In real life, you don’t really notice this, as you tend to see what you expect to see, that is, dark hair over the entire head.
The blue hair printed in comics is probly more realistic based on the wavelengths axually perceived by your eye, but it becomes more noticeable if the shade is particularly garish, or used more extensively than a real reflective surface might warrant.
But hey, thanx to Kevin Smith and Mallrats, I’m still worried about whether Lois Lane’s uterus would be strong enough to bear Superman’s child, so what do I know.
Hijack: the “blue-haired little old lady” look was started in the 1930s by Elsie De Wolf, a former actress and very successful interior designer. When her hair turned gray, she demanded a lavendar rinse, and it inexplicably caught on.
I think they intend to be white-haired little old ladies. A lot of times whitening hair can looked yellowish or dingey. The blue rinse is supposed to make it nice and white, but, like all hair color, sometimes it doesn’t quite turn out that way.
SOME of 'em may be accidental blue-haired ladies, but Elsie De Wolf did it on purpose, and it did become a minor fad amongst the elderly in the 1930s–'50s.
I didn’t know about Elsie (any relation to Billy de Wolf?), but I had always theorized that little old ladies were familiar with the bluing they used to make their sheets white and tried it out on their hair to make it more white (like cher3 said).
Now if someone could just explain Mrs. Slocombe’s hair.
AxeElf, you are correct that black hair will sometimes have natural bluish highlights depending on the lighting and viewing angle, and maybe other conditions. However, I’m thinking DrMatrix is correct with regards to comic books. Maybe using that detail as the basis for the choice of the color blue?
Thanks, Eve. There was an old lady in my church in childhood who had blue hair. I was always puzzled by that - why blue? It wasn’t like it was basically white with a hint of blue, it was sky blue.
**Some of us old coots have tried covering their grey.
When the blond dye fades, especially in chlorinated water,
the color changes.
I once had a purple cast to my beard, which I was just trying to even out, as it was grey more on one side than the other.
When I wouldn’t touch-up in time, people would comment on the purple.
Now, thankfully, it’s gone completely grey.
with regards to blue- and purple-haired old ladies, i think it’s one of those accidental-becomes-intentional things, like wearing t-shirts without over-shirts. maybe the ladies who are blue-haired now remember the glamour of elsie de wolf from their earlier days.
i had a friend who always over-used a de-yellowing rinse on her bleached white hair to turn it lavender. it looked really cool, actually. she learned the trick from an old lady she knew, who did it intentionally, too, as sort of a standard old-lady fashion, like hair nets or gigantic ear-rings. i’ve noticed several brands of mainstream hair dye with names like “lavender rinse” or “blue tint”, so the old ladies in question must want blue hair. you know, sometimes people tend to stop paying attention to unessentials at given points in their lives, like fashion or popular music. my dad never got into rock-and-roll after fats domino, and thinks alt-anything refers to a keyboard stroke.
anyway, i don’t think auburn looks any more realistic than blue on the head of a 70-year old lady.
as for black hair, some “underground” hair dye brand (manic panic? punky color? i don’t know) sells a color called “blue-black”. maybe it’s for superman enthusiasts.