Dyeing for Color

OK, let’s get into something completely obvious, plain for all to see, but little discussed.

It should be no surprise to anyone that there are a great many differences between the US and Germany.

Americans are gregarious, enjoy large servings of food and drink, and seem to live out of our cars.

Germans rely more on public transportation, are sparing in their food consumption, relocate less, and are more likely to rent than to own their home.

We have baseball, they have team handball. Sure, go ahead and try to explain the rules of one sport to a citizen of the other country. I dare you.

And then we have NASCAR, and they have Formula One. Try to explain either to a nuclear physicist.

One thing each country shares is a deep appreciation for hair coloring.

We dye and tease and color with the goal of masking age, highlighting skin tone, and providing an enhanced sense of self and at times even character.

In Germany, the widespread use of radiant dyes and colorings seems intended more to provide for individuality, shock value, and as a way to further define one’s place and position. Either that, or there’s a Dada movement going on atop women’s heads.

Let’s illustrate. In the US, it is very difficult to find a woman over age 35 who does not dye her hair. It may be difficult to find a woman in this category who will acknowledge coloring, who will acknowledge the nod to vanity, and the desire to maintain a degree of her youth through her enhanced locks. But it’s a public secret. Everyone does it. Whether it’s professionally done at a salon each month, or in the private of a bath every so often, it happens. And in many estrogen circles, it’s discussed.

“Oh, I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Have you gone lighter?”

“Is that a new color?”

And even American men are comfortable with coloring. For years there have been ads promoting virility through dark hair. Retired sports stars Walt Frazier and Keith Hernandez shill products, explaining that without dye, there’s ‘no play for Mr. Gray.” Can’t say I would know. Lucky genes, I guess.

But it is a whole different approach, and appearance, in Germany.

There’s absolutely no hiding one’s color. Sure, fewer mature women allow for a natural gray, but the bold streaks and bright blotches that seem to top the heads of German women of all ages come out of nowhere, It’s as though they were zapped in the morning with a smattering of red that rained down from the sky. Occasionally it’s purple, though that seems to be the preference of older teens, with long, dark hair, who want to make a statement by being different from their unnaturally read headed colleagues.

Just today a saw a woman at the market in the University town of Heidelberg who matched her purple hair with identically colored purple stockings. It worked, and was striking, but can you imagine women in America going this route?

And then there are those free radicals who go for a multi-colored hue. Perhaps a few strands of yellow to accentuate the purple tuft over one eye. Some different shades of red, a range of that aspect of the color spectrum, to note a unique style. Or a mahogany to contrast with jet black, either natural or artificial, for the goth look that you would have thought had left Germany centuries ago, when there were in fact Goths.

But it’s really the age thing that is fascinating. Typically, youth and seniors do not share many trends, habits, or customs. Find a teen who listens to the Stones, or anyone carrying an AARP card into Lady Gaga, and you know you have tripped over something special.

But with color and appearance, you could literally take the head of a student at the University of Leipzig and a train conductor in Bremen and swap them for another, and neither look would be different. Could we say that for a HS student in Atlanta and a soccer mom in Kansas City? I think not.

There must be reasons for the passion for bold colors, the sustained use of these colors by women of all ages, and the ability of many of these women to leave their homes without there being any consistency to the quality and evenness of the coloring.

That point, and how the coloring appears to be haphazard, and done too quickly with the intent to just brush over the previous color scheme that lies just beneath, is what really provides some shock value to those of us accustomed to seeing streaky hair only when blond is painted in. It’s literally as though they left the job undone, and decided nonetheless that it works for them. Hmm.

So while I am not sure today’s soundtrack is from Dylan’s ‘Blond on Blond,” it’s a bit closer to Springsteen’s bawdy ‘Red Headed Woman.”