Orange/Hair

Orange is my favorite color.

When I was younger, red was my favorite color for a very very long time. I thought it was bright, vibrant, and exciting. Around the time I became middle-school age, I moved on from red, and was in favorite-color-limbo.

In high school, my favorite color was green – the color of my high school.

Since being in college, I have decided that orange is my favorite color. Really, there was a transition during my senior year of high school.

My freshman year in college, I cut my hair into a mohawk-ish like configuration, and was able to keep it like that for a few days before I began to feel awkward.

Later in my freshman year, one of my best friends bleached her hair, and eventually dyed it. When she bleached it, I knew that I wanted to bleach my hair. However, at the time, I did not have a car, and none of my friends really supported my bleaching my hair. So I wanted.

I waited almost two years.

This weekend I dyed some of my hair orange. The process was fascinating, and it is very interesting to see social reactions to an individual who has colored hair.

First, when I went into the beauty supply store, the attendant at the store politely helped me find bleach, but she was little more than polite. I think this was due to the fact that I am male. Also, I think my height may have figured into this.

When I went into Hot Topic, the clerk was more polite to me than any clerk has been to me at Hot Topic before.

Everywhere I go, I get people giving me funny looks, making comments like “I bet he likes the SF Giants,” or curious inquiries from friends; “so, why’d you do it?”

Let me honestly answer the last question: I dyed my hair orange because I can. Because Orange is my favorite color. Because nobody actually expected me to do it. Because I love the color orange.

My hair is dyed orange as a symbol of my freedom. My ability to express myself opening in anyway I can, for whatever reason I want. Even if that means that I do not actually have a reason.

I just wanted you to know this.

I will be sharing more stories of having colored hair, and other social deviance (my potential earring) and how people react to it/how it shifts my social interactions. So you can look forward to that.