Bleach Renaissance
BY HINDLEY WANG
Since arriving at Vassar, you may have felt a pressure to stand out in one way or another, whether that be through academics, relationships, or otherwise. It’s no news that fashion and style—embedded in the fabric of identity, expression, and personal beliefs—determine crucial aspects of sociability at Vassar. Students observe each other constantly—from the abrasively open Deece to the awkwardly spaced-out paths connecting campus traffic. You can’t help but notice other people’s style as they notice yours.
Of all the stylistic choices that have come to represent the token Vassar kid, it’s not hard to notice the culture of bleached hair on campus, especially the do-it-yourself kind. The yolky yellow color and withered, lifeless texture raise suspicions of one’s attempt to be clouty, but more often, are connoted with a personal dilemma.
Commonly referred to as a crisis control, or the crisis control, bleaching is a practice followed by many in order to regain a sense of style or self. It seems to have evolved into a competitive sport at Vassar, though one with weak competitors—for lack of expertise in bleaching never seems to stop anyone from initiating such drastic changes in their appearance. Oscillating between admiration and disdain for such courage and boldness, people who have not experienced the possibilities of bleach are quick to criticize the style as an assimilation to campus culture. The general prejudice concludes that bleaching is just an attempt to be cool. But the distinction between “having a crisis” and “trying to be cool” is very blurred. The paranoia of not feeling accepted by others—and above all, yourself—is pervasive among individuals who take drastic measures to alter their appearance.
The complete erasure (or at least, the attempt of complete erasure) of the natural pigmentation of your hair is nothing short of a radical reinvention. It exposes you to the public eye in a state of stylistic vulnerability—either you pull it off or you don’t. What’s more, bleaching your hair not only alters your outward appearance, but may also sink into your own internal perception. It’s never just about the hair, is it?
What about bleaching is so appealing to some and so off-putting to others? Why do we tend to be harsh on those who are just being harsh on their own hair?
I know that my skepticism partially comes from my lack of courage to pull off such a bold change in my self-presentation, but also from my difficulties with the gendered, politicized, and racialized connotations that accompany blonde hair. It seems to me that bleaching is an unnatural attempt to be someone else, inauthentic even. Is the process an innovation of the self or just a negation of the old?
I first approached Sarah Chapman ‘20, an art history major with a platinum blonde bob that accentuated her thick, dark brows nicely. “I mean, it definitely makes me feel violently femme,” responded Sarah. “I first thought about doing it back in high school, but I didn’t want to dye my hair yet. I finally decided to do it after study-abroad because I wanted a change—and had gone through a breakup. I researched how to do it yourself online and just kind of learned as I went.” Happy with her first result, Sarah has maintained her desired state of blonde ever since. I couldn’t help but question the infamous myth: do blondes have more fun? “I don’t feel like I have more fun but it does feel different to be referred to as ‘a blonde.’”
Her remark of feeling “violently femme” stuck with me even at the end of our conversation, for reasons I could not quite explain yet.
“You mean you want to talk about how it is often gross and yellow? Yeah!” Diego Scala Chavez ‘22 replied with a self-mocking brush over his blonde buzz cut. His openness surprised me. “So I actually bleached my hair for the first time this semester. It’s something that I’d never done but I was always curious… [about] how I would look, so at the start of this year, I figured that if I were to do it at any point, it was going to be then.” Confident after watching the successful transformation of a YouTuber from a darker brown similar to his hair, to a greyish blonde, Diego caved and went on his way to Sally’s Beauty Shop for the recommended bleaching kit and appropriate toner. A close friend dyed his hair for him. The orange-yellow color of his hair after the initial bleach was corrected with the second round of bleach the day after, resulting in a pale-yellow. The residue of yellow was eliminated finally with the help of the toner.
“I think originally it was pretty wild for me to see myself with a different hair color than the one I had for 19 years. I would sometimes catch my reflection on car windows or doors and be taken aback for a second because my mind had still not processed that that was me. I think for most people at Vassar, bleaching your hair or seeing someone with bleached hair is nothing surprising. You always see new people with different hairstyles.” Diego, who is an international student from Mexico, went on to detail the differences in his personal experience. “I guess it was a bit different on a personal level because I felt like I was defying so many expectations that my friends and family back in Mexico had for me, and I was preparing myself for all the drawbacks and criticism that comes with that.”
As an international student myself, I understood the limits and resistance from different home cultures to some practices at Vassar, or in the States overall, but I wasn’t sure about what kind of criticism Diego would get for bleaching his hair. “Mexico has gender roles that are set in stone, revolving around very antiquated ideas of masculinity and femininity,” Diego explained. “Anything artistic, or that might lean closer to the ‘feminine’ side like painting your nails, dyeing your hair, and anything that isn't made for your gender is very frowned upon. In fact, I don't think I know a single male-identifying person in my city with dyed hair. Coming to Vassar, I saw it as an opportunity for me to explore my gender expression in ways that didn't conform to the ones back home.”
“At Vassar the expectations are much less intense. You might hear people saying that bleached hair looks bad and messy… so I think I was anxious but nowhere near as much as I was for the criticism I expected back home,” Diego admitted. “In fact, I accidentally uploaded a picture to my Instagram story where I had painted nails and dyed hair, and the first thing I got was a very frightened message from my mom asking me if I was ‘a drag queen.’ [Dyeing my hair] put me out of my comfort zone, but it was healthy in the end for me to be able to, even if accidentally, show my family how gender roles are stupid.”
From my conversations with Sarah and Diego, I realized there was a strong sense of time and place that emerged from their individual decisions to bleach their hair—it couldn’t have happened in high school, or back home, because there’s simply more possibility and playfulness when it takes place here and now. Self-reinvention is as much about defiance as it is about innovation; a renaissance as much as an homage to your past. Bleached hair has come to define Vassar in a refreshed way rather than mere stereotype—it embodies a space of the in-between. Bleached hair is adaptable to any color of choice, but it maintains the unapologetic rawness of reclaiming your identity. It anticipates revolution.