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Why Do People Use Hair Dye?
What are they trying to gain?
One can apply philosophy to anything and everything. Even this topic. Approaching everyday phenomena with a philosophical attitude helps us understand ourselves.
Dying one’s hair is acting to change one’s appearance. Why would someone do that? One is covering over one’s natural hair color with an artificial color. That much is obvious, but is there more to the act? Is it as simple a matter as changing one’s shirt? What is really going on when people dye their hair?
Some would say hair dying is about fashion. Definitely, dying one’s hair could be a fashion statement, but as I said about fashion in an earlier article, the question is whether one is expressing oneself or conforming to external pressures.
Form Versus Function
When we consider what clothing to wear, we consider both practical matters and our appearance. On the one hand, we wear more clothes or fewer clothes depending on the temperature, and perhaps we don a raincoat if it is raining. That’s being practical. On the other hand, we wear particular styles and colors of clothing because we want to appear a certain way, even if it is only to please ourselves. So, you wear a coat because it is cold, and you wear a particular style and color of coat because you want to look good.
