My hair has been just about every color I can think of. I’ve had hot pink hair for years straight.
Mostly it’s a boredom thing. It only costs eight bucks and an hour of your time to have bitchen’ pink hair for a month. It makes me happy. It makes little kids happy. Why the heck not?
Only twice have someone dyed my hair. The first one was a permanent dye, and it lasted about one and a half years. By the year mark, though, I had two-tone hair. Near the end of it, my sister decided to dye all my hair with a color very similar to my natural hair color, just to cover it all until I got a haircut. The first dye was just to impress, to show me differently. I liked the color, though, and if I ever find out what dye it was, I would try it again although as a temporary dye. My friends hid the color and brand from me, that is why I do not know the dye.
I know a male guy who, since last year, has been dying his hair of all different colors. I asked him why he did it, his reply was something like “You only live once, and I want to know how I look in all the hair color styles available”.
I can’t do anything about my breasts. The saggy sisters are here to stay, thanks to two (ungrateful, I might add) children I’ve given birth to. Similarly the stretch marks across my stomach and hips ain’t going anywhere any time soon. I’m getting more wrinkles every day. My ass is where my upper thigh used to be. For an hour after I get off the treadmill, I hobble around like an octeganarian because my Achilles tendon is giving me fits.
But my hair? Ha! That’s the ONE thing on my body I can easily and affordably improve upon.
Psst! Lezaza, the word is “insecurity.” 
I only dye my hair when I have a little extra money, which is also usually around the time I get a haircut. (I dye it myself though)
I generally dye my hair around every 5-6 months and alternate the colours slightly. I don’t go extremely funky because of school and work rules, but I do dye my hair stuff like Black Plum or Deepest Indigo. Next time I plan to go red again, as my hair fades to that shade anyway.
As to the reasons why, well I just like to change my hair color. My natural color is more of this mousy brown with a few blonde/red highlights which I honestly don’t like. I actually look better as a red head due to my skin tone (very pale and lightly freckled) which inclines me to believe that I should have been a red-head especially since no matter what colour I dye my hair it will eventually fade to some shade of red/auburn. Even when I dyed it Indigo, it was bluish for about a month then faded to auburn. Another reason is because I have started to find silver hairs now that my hair has roots. I’m only 20, and though they aren’t many it’s slightly annoying. I’d hoped to avoid the female family curse of going silver by the time they are 30.
As to washing, I usually only was my hair every other day. Unless it feels really icky because I’ve been doing something (working out, swimming, or if it’s just a hot day or been a long day at work) it generally doesn’t need it. Plus, though my hair is oily, in the winter after I wash it I get pretty bad static. In the summer though I try to wash everyday, and sometimes twice a day if it’s especially warm.
Please note my username…
I was naturally blond until my early 20’s…it’s the color nature gave me until she turned into a BITCH. I now dye it blonde because it’s about the only color that goes with my complexion/coloring. Mind you I get about 3 shades of blonde put in so it’s pretty natural looking…
I’ve been coloring my hair for over 23 years.
17 of them successfully…and not in a row.
I started because my mom decided I would look good with high lights. Orange streaks later…I had to dye my hair to cover up the crappy hair.
Now, when I do let my hair color grow out, my hair is a dark, dark brown…too blah.
I’ve been a red head for so long ( everything from *Copper Penny * to the current *Sparkling Amber * ) that everyone who knows me thinks I’m a natural red head.
If they ever saw me nekked, then then would see that the rug and the curtains don’t match.
It’s fun. ( and my hair is shiny and healthy, but I owe that to Milkbones 
)
Oh, and I have no gray, either.
This little bon mot made my whole day brighter!
Naturally, I have very dark brown hair. The dying all started when I put in purple highlights on a dare…
…the highlights faded to very light bleached blonde. Yuck. So I dyed it a reddish-brown-purple…
…which lasted about a month or two before fading to light brown. Except where the highlights had been. Those were still light blonde. And my natural color was growing in. So I went to get it professionally dyed a medium brown (close enoug, I figured)…
…but at the last minute decided to go kind of purple. It faded. The highlights stayed. The remnents of my other dye job stayed. Roots grew in. I had quadricolored hair. This was, needless to say, not very attractive. Additionally, the faded color did not compliment my complexion. So I bought two boxes of dark brown hair dye at Wal-Mart, and had my friend Katie use them on me…
…only to find that my hair had been turned black!. Fortunately, it faded to more or less my natural color, and you can’t see the roots…
…except for where my 19 year-old head has decided to go grey.
****!
I’m going to ignore it until people start noticing. But that’s why I’d be called a regular hair colorer.
It’s not because I’m jealous of your silken tresses ladies. Oh no, no, no. That would be petty and unworthy of me. I was just ah… concerned for your… um…health is all. Yeah that’s it. I figured all that nasty dye just couldn’t be good for you.
However, in light of the female (and one man but he’s still very butch) Doper’s responses to my OP I have seen the highlights and I will repent of my anti-dye ways and will embrace the twin godesses of L’oreal and Clairol because well, “you’re worth it”.
Because if you don’t they hound you about your grey showing, and about how you should take care of yourself and how your husband will leave you if you let your hair go grey. No shit. I still get this and I am still resisting.
I’ve been dyeing or hennaing my hair for about 20 years. Nature gave me boring light brown hair, not dark enough for chestnut, not light enough for blonde. I’ve had all the colors of the rainbow, and not looking to stop! I’ve got purple under the bathroom sink, but I’m unsure to go that route, or go for a kicky platinum.
As for the not washing daily, heck, I’m behind that. I go more or less once a week, and heavy condition, and I still have wicked frizzys for the first couple of days (naturally curly and fine, yuck!). Then finally! My hair straightens out and the body appears. It feels even better just after a dye session: seems to coat the shaft and add some thickness.
And in between the dyejobs (like right now), I wear funky hats.
I object! I dye my hair to lighter, brighter colours that I prefer to look at. I do not care if other people dislike it.
I don’t like my natural hair colour. I think it’s boring. I change it to suit my mood and to reflect my personality better. I don’t see that as being insecure OR vain.
I wouldn’t call it vanity; it’s just difficult to break the habit once you start! I started colouring my hair in my late teens for something fun and different. Nothing outrageous; just from a medium honey colour to a medium auburn colour, and only every 2 months or so. Now I’m in mid mid-twenties, have more white hair than you would believe, and growing out the red colour would look absolutely dreadful. It’s just much easier to keep on colouring those roots every couple of months. My hair always looks and feels its best freshly coloured, anyway. Apart from that, I don’t do anything to my hair apart from washing it every other day and combing it. No blow-drying, no styling products, never anything more than a simple headband. So even if it were vanity to colour my hair, I don’t think I’m deserving of the stereotype!
Someone told me you shouldn’t colour your hair when pregnant… Is this true? Will I have to finally kick the habit one of these days?
I only started doing it last year, just because I felt like it. I went mahogany for a while, then back to my regular copper chestnut, then plum orchid in December. I’ll probably go true red in a couple of months. It’s just something to do, and it covers up the white widow’s peak I started getting some years back. It’s not for vanity at all. It’s entertainment, and people enjoy it.
Yes, hair dye is disreccommended for use during pregnancy.
I’m a guy and I dye my hair. I look much older than I am and yes in my business I don’t want to look old. Actually I don’t want to look older than my boss. I also do not enjoy the grey in my hair. I didn’t enjoy it when I was 17 but then I was too chickenshit to dye it because I was afraid of the value judgements people would make about me and my manhood.
But as the greatest mind of our time says,
Screw you guys, I’m going home.
I don’t dye my hair, but that may well be because I can’t think of a color that would be better than my natural coppery locks. My brother (whose hair is a significantly darker shade of red, but not quite auburn) puts gold highlights in his hair, and it looks pretty cool. It’d be too much work with hair my length, but it looks pretty nice. He’s proof that even people who are very vain about their natural hair color are not immune to the charms of dyes.
I look my age with my normal hair color but with about half my hair gray, I look a lot older. And, I’m right at 30. I started to gray at 21, my mother started at 16!
I dye my hair my natural color for, as Mando JO said, mainly professional reasons.
I’ve been coloring my hair since I was about 20. Back in those days, my hair was naturally honey blonde, but I was going through a punk phase (it was the mid-'80’s) and bleached it white, cut it very short, and had one long strand down the front that I sprayed hot pink, electric blue, or whatever color took my fancy and went with what I was wearing.
My mother found a picture of me from college over the holidays, and we laughed ourselves silly.
These days, since my hair has darkened to that color so attractively known as “dishwater,” I’ll spray it with lemony stuff to get golden highlights to brighten things up. Or, in winter, I’ll go all out and dye it red since most of my winter outfits are dark colors that look better with red hair.
Basically, I see my hair as a fashion accessory. I don’t wear jewelry or paints my nails, so this is it.
