Taking the Pink Plunge! How Dyeing My Hair Changed My Life

Soo Joo Park, Irene Kim, Fernanda Ly: Three models utterly transformed by a whimsical hair color. So, too, it went for me last month, when I booked a double process that left me with an ethereal cloud of pale pink hair—and a dose of serious life-changing magic.

It was just last spring that a fresh take on pastel pink lengths emerged on the runway, where Louis Vuitton model Fernanda Ly brought the shade into the realm of anime in a way that felt completely of the moment—and immediately stole my heart. Here was the magical candy floss hair I’d been looking for and, in a mahou shoujo–inspired trance, I decided to finally take the pink hair plunge with colorist Aura Friedman, a master of the double process and of pastels, in particular.

Armed with a few reference photos and a friendly word of advice from Ly herself (“It’s all in your mind-set! If you think you can pull it off, you probably will”), I braced myself for a 10-hour, two-stage procedure to first slowly lift my hair from darkest brown to white blonde, then add a pink tone over top. Friedman and her assistant, Kirsten Stuke, spent two hours painstakingly hand-painting my strands, winding cotton around the roots, and blending blue bowls of bleach with Olaplex to protect them. The horrific scalp burning I’d heard about, which has been compared to childbirth, was nonexistent, to my enormous relief (though I had taken Friedman’s advice and not washed my hair for a few days prior, to create protective buildup on the scalp).

Midway through the adventure, I frighteningly began to resemble a low-budget Khaleesi with angry red marks around my hairline (from dragon burns?), but a few more hours and two washes of Manic Panic later, the crown of my head reached a pure bubblegum pink, while the bottom had depth: gold tones and peach tones and flecks of white and champagne. “It looks almost natural, or how pink would look if it was natural,” Friedman told me—and despite hours of bleaching, stayed remarkably soft and healthy.

But the real lesson happened when I stepped out of the salon: When you go pink, I soon learned, everything changes—and for me, all for the better. Suddenly, I understood second-day hair. Where before my slippery strands would grow lank and greasy, now they became beachy and textured with a spritz of dry shampoo, while air-drying my locks overnight gave me French girl waves (yes, Asian hair can become laissez-faire). I used to spend 10 minutes washing my hair every morning, but now I take an hour on Sundays to indulge in an elaborate sequence of leave-in treatments, transforming a painful chore into a calming spa ritual.

The upkeep can be intense: Roots must be touched up every four to six weeks, and I’ve switched stripping shampoos for Plarmia serums and Elujuda Emulsion creams by Milbon, a Japanese line with products designed for bleached locks, plus a custom pink conditioner from Friedman. In exchange, my makeup has become more minimal: delicate brows, less liner, and a single-minded focus on clear, glowing skin, which means I can forgo foundation more often, or even go barefaced.

Yes, strangers do stare. “Pink hair, wow,” I’ve heard whispered, while others can’t resist touching, even though they are strangers. Among Vogue.com staffers, I doubt I would have earned more positive attention if I’d announced I was engaged or pregnant. “Hey, Fernanda,” I hear quite often these days, while outside the office, I’ve been told I’m now known as “that pink-haired Vogue girl” or “super anime.” In that way, I feel I’ve finally become the woman I was always meant to be.

In other ways, it’s unsettling. “You’re a cool girl now,” several people have told me (thanks?)—but is an unusual hair color the poor man’s substitute for having a personality? And if it is, in my case, do I even care? It’s only been a few weeks, but I already know that I’m actually happier each day, and more confident. Before, I wore my dark strands like a curtain, down and loose to obscure my face. Now, as a friend pointed out, my hair is more often pulled back, more playful: half-up buns, pinned-back French twists, and ultra-high ponytails that I can whip back and forth. For the first time, I’m having fun with my hair. That alone feels like magic.

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