# What's the deal with blue hair? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2000, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634 "2000-12-08T15:28:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/1 "2000-12-08T15:28:20Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/2 "2000-12-08T15:46:15Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![AxeElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e99b99/32.png) [@AxeElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AxeElf)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/3 "2000-12-08T15:49:52Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/4 "2000-12-08T15:55:03Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/5 "2000-12-08T17:02:56Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/6 "2000-12-08T17:06:16Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![aseymayo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/7 "2000-12-08T18:40:52Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/8 "2000-12-08T19:02:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Show\_Biz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@Show\_Biz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Show_Biz)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/9 "2000-12-08T19:52:29Z")
\*\*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. [http://www.geocities.com/sdpeoplepages/show\_biz.html](http://www.geocities.com/sdpeoplepages/show_biz.html) \*\* ---
**Author:** ![avacado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47774/32.png) [@avacado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/avacado)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2000, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-blue-hair/44634/10 "2000-12-08T21:04:11Z")
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.