I’ve got an odd relationship with my hair. We hang around together a lot, but we’re not close. I’m not one of those people who spends hours styling it (I’d be happy if I never had to do anything with it ever again) but I grudgingly acknowledge that it plays a big role in the image we present to those around us, and we are inevitably going to be judged on it. Therefore I will wash it on a semi-regular basis, to let the world know that I don’t have a complete disregard for its hygiene standards. But I don’t really have the time nor the inclination for any more than that. Having to make myself look presentable for a special occasion is something I find rather tedious and annoying, if not stressful.

My hair started being needy in my late teens. Before that, we were on good terms. It grew long and silky, a lovely dark brown, almost black. It hung in pigtails most of the time, trouble free. Maybe it all went wrong when I started messing with it. I had a big bubbly perm when I was around 15 (it was the 80s), so perhaps when I started finding the odd grey hair a couple of years later, that was my hair’s revenge. No problem, I’ll just hide them with a few red and orange highlights, I thought. The grey hairs multiplied, so I started getting a semi-permanent colour every few weeks. Within a few years, the greys were so abundant, only permanent dye would do the job. The texture of my hair, once fine and silky, was now uncontrollable frizz. I scraped it back into a ponytail and tried to forget about it. I’m so hopeless with hair, I couldn’t dye my own roots (I tried a couple of times and gave up — it was never going to work) so I’d have to go to the salon to get it done. The appointments got closer together as the regrowth became more obvious. I tried dyeing it a lighter color so the roots would blend in better, in an attempt to stretch the time between salon visits.

Before I realized, it had got to the point where I looked in the mirror and saw a middle-aged woman I didn’t recognize, with a boring blondish brownish functional hairstyle. It didn’t reflect the person I am inside, not one little bit. What was I to do?

It was Todd Rundgren who solved the problem for me, when I saw him in concert with Ringo Starr in June 2014. Now in his mid-60s, he’s still the epitome of rock star cool, and has been rockin’ his crazy colored hair since the early 1970s. I mused to myself that he probably doesn’t have to bleach the white bit on top any more… and there was the answer. If I bleached the top of my hair white, and dyed the underneath black, those roots would be hidden and so I could go longer between salon visits. But would I have the nerve to do it? Unlike Todd, I’m not a rock star (other than in my imagination) so would those around me be able to accept this new image? Did they already assume I was that mousey middle aged woman in the mirror, and would this hairstyle represent to them some sort of mid-life crisis or a desperate cry for help?

I’ve never been one to worry too much about what other people think, so in August of 2014 I went ahead and carried out my plan. It’s only hair, after all. What could possibly go wrong? I could always dye it back. It took me a week or so to get used to it, but once the initial shock had worn off, I started to notice something interesting. People were talking to me. Strangers. People on the street, in shops, everywhere. Nice people. They weren’t talking to me about my hair, but they were striking up conversations with me in a way I’d not experienced before. I have been accused of appearing aloof and intimidating in the past, so it’s not something I was accustomed to. Was there something about the way I looked now which made me suddenly appear more approachable, or was I just more noticeable?

Once everyone had got used to the black/white (and the natural white was growing in nicely) I decided to introduce some color, so I had some blue and purple bits added in between. Straight away, complete strangers were stopping me to tell me they loved my hair. This had never happened before in my entire life! At first, it was mostly women my own age (or a bit older) but as time went on I was picking up compliments from all kinds of folks: conservatively dressed old ladies, trendy young girls, cool hipsters, homeless people in doorways. All ages, all races, all social groups: the appreciation for multi-colored hair apparently knows no bounds. Since I swapped the purple for green recently, it seems I’ve widened my appeal to now include children among the admirers. On one recent grocery shopping outing, a little girl (approximately age 7-8) stopped me to tell me she loved my hair. Then in the next store, the same thing happened again with another little girl around the same age.

Now when I look in the mirror, I see somebody who looks a lot more like the inner me. Could it be my confidence in the image that I’m now projecting that people are responding to, or is it just because that person looks like someone who’d be fun to talk to?

I wonder, maybe if we all boldly let the world see who we really are inside, people wouldn’t be so quick to judge us on arbitrary things like skin color or where we live, or pigeonhole us according to what we do to earn money, or what teams we support etc. So don’t just dress to show which social tribe you feel you belong to, dress to be YOU. If others see us as an individual, maybe they’ll look a little deeper for what unites us as people, rather than what makes us different.