Ritsuko Hotaka, a colorist at
Hair Kuwayama in the East Village, said that nearly 20 percent of her clients are asking to go blond. Kelly Su, the founder of
Sonder Hair Studio in NoLIta, reported that of all her Asian customers, about 50 percent are going lighter. (Both salons have a largely Asian client base.)
“It has so much to do with the number of Asian-American bloggers who are becoming increasingly visible,” said Greta Lee, an actress who went platinum for the second half of last year. “There’s an army of Asians who are rising in the fashion world.”
Once a so-called editorial look adopted by a select few, like the popular Korean-American model Soo Joo Park, who found fame with her trademark ultralight locks, the aesthetic has paved the way for celebrities, street-style stars and more to follow suit. That includes the model and blogger Irene Kim, the designer Yoon Anh and the social-media influencers Vanessa Hong, Tina Leung and Margaret Zhang.
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| Jessica Wu, a stylist and model. CreditJoshua Bright for The New York Times |
Not all of them went blond with the sole desire of mirroring Western beauty ideals. Ms. Hong was going through a major moment in her life and wanted a drastic change. Ms. Leung, after seven years with a Skrillex side shave, felt as if she was missing an edge.
“I had been seeing all these amazing Asian girls with blond hair, and I’m a sucker for advertisement,” she said, laughing. “If I see something over and over again, I kind of want it.”
This demand can be attributed in part to the 2014 invention of
Olaplex, an active ingredient added to bleach to repair breakage from chemical damage, making the process of lifting 10 levels of pigment a more achievable feat. And 18 months ago, when the West Village salon
Whittemore House introduced its Hair Paint formula that protects, strengthens and treats hair during the lightening process, its number of Asian clients doubled.
Despite these advances, it’s still challenging to go platinum. It can take up to 12 hours, with as many as six applications of bleach and a bill that can start at $400. That doesn’t take into account the upkeep needed, which includes a regimen of deep conditioning treatments, toners and purple shampoos, and a diligence about monthly touch-ups that can run upward of $200 a visit.
“You’re stripping your hair down to the follicle, to the point where you have this wiry Brillo pad left on your head,” Ms. Lee said. “That kind of rebellion, that’s not something to take lightly.”
For those who do, it may serve, symbolically, as an act of rebellion against the Asian good-girl trope, an extension of the “model minority” stereotype — conservative, quiet and hard-working. And since “Asian hair” has a history of being exoticized, often accompanied with descriptors like “long, silky smooth and jet black,” flipping it completely on its head becomes a way of taking back ownership and of reclaiming identity.
“Striving to present only one type of hairstyle not only accommodates narrow and fetishized expectations, it also freezes the ability to experiment creatively with appearance,” said Laura Miller, a professor of Japanese studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “Bleached hair is often linked with other forms of body modification, such as piercing and tattooing, and therefore reflects a rejection of mainstream and old-fashioned femininity norms. What better way to signal thinking that is different from one’s parent generation than with a radically different appearance?”
Dr. Miller, for one, hopes this is a trend in which young Asian-Americans are pulling style and cultural cues from Asian countries. “What they see in Asia, especially in Japan and Korea, is a lot of hybridity and playfulness with hair colors and styles,” she said. “When Asian-Americans bleach their hair, they may not have in mind white Americans, but rather Asian celebrities such as Moga Mogami or Hyo-yeon Kim.”
One can make the argument that hair color and race are, or should be, mutually exclusive. “Caucasians are able to jump around, and it’s not a big deal for them to be blond, a redhead or brunet, whereas those same rules don’t apply to us,” Ms. Lee said. “It would be so empowering to be able to just try anything the way the rest of the world seems to be able to without any problems.”
Even if the intention is to fit in, having pale hair as an Asian has unpredictable effects. Ms. Leung said she has noticed more head-swiveling stares. Ms. Rim found it to be an outlet for creativity. And Jessica Wu, a stylist, producer and model, credits her six-month-old icy blond hair as the reason she is landing more modeling jobs, including the recent Glossier Lidstar campaign.
“Having blond hair has forced me to reassess how I wanted to present myself to the world,” Ms. Wu said. “It’s given me more confidence, it affects the way I dress and the way I perform as a model, and it’s allowed me to be more experimental in terms of my personal style.”
This freedom of expression feels right in line with the values of millennials and Gen Z-ers who prioritize experiences and authenticity above everything else. “I just wanted to shake up my look, but I think with any modification, it’s a break in tradition, and I think we’re more brazen now with what we do,” Ms. Leung said.
While it’s easy to write this off as a beauty trend, this growing community points to stirrings of change on a much larger scale, like the shaping of a new Asian-American identity.
“Maybe this is one part of unlocking the standards we’ve been imprisoned by,” Ms. Lee said. “It may seem like a silly, frivolous act, an act of vanity, but Asians and Asian-Americans have a history of being marginalized and ignored, so whatever the political statement is, maybe by having blond hair, it’s a very simple declaration: ‘Here I am. Pay attention to me. See me.’”
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| me; the closest I ever got to "blonde" |
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