History Main / NonconformistDyedHair

* Jace, [[DatingWhatDaddyHates Adrien's date for the gala]], has pink hair.

This trope is slightly weightier for natural brunets because it takes more work to put and maintain color on dark hair compared to blonde hair. In addition, characters from predominantly dark-haired populations stick out even more than they would in communities where some people are already varying shades of brown, blonde and red. For example, the GyaruGirl dyes or bleaches her hair (and darkens her skin, in the case of the ''ganguro'' and ''yamanba'' types) to contrast the RavenHairIvorySkin beauty standard in Japan. Nonconformist Dyed Hair is something of an EvolvingTrope as well, since dyeing your hair an unnatural color has been much more common and accessible since the 2010s.

* ''Anime/BangDream'': Ran Mitake added a red streak to her hair after she and her friends founded the band Afterglow as a sign of her rebellion against her father's desire to have her take over the family's flower arranging school. After her father accepted that she was serious about the band, he supported her, and she met him halfway by resuming her flower arranging lessons, but she kept the streak in her hair.

** Fudou Akio's hair is styled into a mowhawk, with some strands of hair dyed silver. He's an aloof, rebellious player, who until his CharacterDevelopment, prefered to solve his problems by himself and mocked the idea of combination hissatsu techniques. As an adult, he mellowed down considerably and mentained some close friendships. His hair grew out and he no longer dyes it.

* Briefly played for laughs in ''Literature/{{Toradora}}''. After being rejected by Sumire, Kitamura dyes his hair blonde to rebel. One smack from his father (off screen) he's dyed it black again and is back to being a model student.

* Melissa Gold was a blonde hailing from a broken home. When she away and joined a wrestling group, she dyed her hair white, and ultimately became the villainess Screaming Mimi. The unusual hair was furthered by the pink stripe in her makeover as Songbird of the ''Comicbook/{{Thunderbolts}}''. Even following a HeelFaceTurn she kept the hair.

* ''Webcomic/ScarletLady'': Since Adrien's father is a ControlFreak obsessed with maintaining his son's image as a model and a public face of his company, one of the ways he rebels is by dyeing his hair. This starts in "The Bubbler", when Gabriel not only refuses to hold a birthday party for Adrien, but kicks his friend Nino out of their house. Adrien retaliates by dyeing his hair green. He later contemplates which shade he should use when Gabriel goes back on his word to let him attend Kitty Section's concert during the music festival; eventually, he amasses an entire collection of hair dyes which he uses to blackmail his father into letting him go out, on pain of "experimenting with a new shade" otherwise.
* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} continuations and expansions that come from the warped mind of Creator/AAPessimal, the Smith-Rhodes family are mainly redhaired. But depending on the genetics of those who marry into the family, this isn't a given. Johanna Viktoria Smith-Rhodes was disappointed that the genetic crap-shot gave her blonde hair with just alittle tinge of red - classic "strawberry blonde". She paid some creative thought to this and decided to enhance that slight red in her hair. By having the whole damn lot dyed vivid neon-pink. To, you know, make her stand out a bit. This trained Assassin and jungle fighter is now ''The Pink Death'' to her country's mortal foes.

* ''Film/{{Clueless}}'': Tai is the kind, klutzy new girl whose hair is dyed a bright red. While she's not too alternative, it does come up when conventionally feminine and pretty Cher and Dionne befriend her. When they give her a makeover, their first order of business is to remove the dye from her hair[[note]]in a moment of ArtisticLicense, they wash it off[[/note]]. She spends the rest of the film with natural brown hair.

* ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'': Ramona Flowers constantly dyes her dark hair various unnatural colors, such as magenta, blue, and green. She's a cool rollerskater whom Scott is immediately enthralled by. In an attempt to emulate her, Scott's first girlfriend Knives dyes part of her hair blue.

* ''Film/{{Sheroes}}'': Ryder is the least conventional looking of the four friends, which includes her hair being dyed a metallic blue.

* ''Literature/CanYouSeeMe'': In ''All the Pieces of Me'', NewTransferStudent Annie has rainbow coloured hair that Tally compares to a unicorn. Tally finds her a little scary, because she's never met someone who looks different on purpose, like she doesn't mind being stared at. Annie later stands up to Tally's thieving, bullying "friends" instead of changing herself to fit in with them, like Tally does. Tally eventually realizes that it's better to be alone than to cut off pieces of yourself to fit in, and that Annie would make a much better friend than any of the girls in Tally's group.

* ''Literature/HannahSwensen'': Subverted in ''Lemon Meringue Pie Murder''. When Michelle Swensen first appears in person, she comes off a bus with green streaks in her hair and some other nonconformist changes to her appearance (especially the clothes), to the point where Hannah didn't even ''recognize'' her until Mike pointed her out, and thinks this trope is in effect. She visibly relaxes when Michelle explains that she was in a student play earlier that day, and just hadn't had time to change out of her costume or wash the spray dye out of her hair before she needed to catch her bus.

* ''Literature/LeiaPrincessOfAlderaan'' describes the teenage years of the aforementioned Amilyn Holdo. As a teenager, she dyes her hair wild colors and wears vibrant clothes, to distance herself from other Gatalentans, who are usually serious and prefer pale greys and whites. She's toned down her style [[Film/TheLastJedi as an adult]], though she still has unconventional clothing and purple hair during her service with the Resistance.

* ''Series/CobraKai'' as part of his new more confident Hawk persona, Eli's Mohawk haircut goes through several different colours (Red, Blue and Purple) as the series progresses.

* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'': Downplayed with Patricia in season 1. While her hair isn't technically dyed so much as she uses brightly-colored clip-on hair-streaks, it's another way of marking her as the tough, alternative "goth pixie" who stands in contrast to the rest of The House, such as being Nina's {{Foil}} and Sibuna's independent, anti-heroic [[TheLancer Lancer]].

* ''Series/PaperGirls'': Adult Tiffany is shown to be a hip, freespirited DJ who's living a bohemian lifestyle, with braided hair that's dyed blue. She had dropped out of MIT as the atmosphere was too rigid, unaccepting because Tiffany is black and rejected any independent thinking. Tiffany decides that she'll start an institute herself to foster new ideas.

** Amanita Caplan is the understanding and intelligent daughter of HippieParents who works at a bookstore in the liberal Bay Area. She's also into women, and has dreadlocks dyed blue, purple, and pink (the [[QueerColors colors of the Bisexual Pride flag]]).

* ''Series/SexEducation'': Maeve has naturally dark hair, and in the first season it's dyed blonde with pink streaks. She's the school's surly, rebellious outcast from a TrashyTrailerHome, and an outspoken feminist with a (slanderous) reputation for being promiscuous. As she becomes more integrated into Moordale and begins to strive for legitimate academic recognition, she goes back to her natural brown hair.

* Music/{{Eminem}}, who bleached his naturally dark brown hair blond in 1998 to play his AxCrazy alter-ego Slim Shady, frequently uses this trope in his lyrics. His dyed hair launched a famous NinetiesHair fashion trend, which worked beautifully with Slim Shady's role as TheVirus, [[CorruptionOfAMinor corrupting America's children]] with ThePowerOfApathy. Slim also came to signify Eminem's fame, relevance, dark side and drug addiction, so especially in his mid-period work, bleached-blond hair is used as a symbol of him relapsing back into his old misbehaviour (in {{Kayfabe}}).

** "Sing For The Moment": The first verse describes a nonconformist child from a broken home with "dyed hair" whose parents fret that he is brainwashed from rock and rap music.

* ''VideoGame/DanceCentral'': Glitch is freestyle hip-hop dance prodigy who dyes streaks of color into his hair. This goes with his more carefree personality and also helps him stand out on the street when he performs.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry6'': Mercedes "[[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname Jonron]]" Martinez is a former college baseball star turned [[LaResistance arnachist revolutionary]] who [[BloodKnight loves killing FND soldiers]], and has dyed solid red hair, which in addition to her red and blue clothes, establishes her as a PrimaryColourChampion.

* In ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'', Chloe Price's most notable feature is her bright blue hair. She's a rebellious and angry punk who was expelled from the same school the protagonist, Max Caulfield, attends. She has her natural blonde hair in flashbacks (and [[spoiler: an alternative timeline where her father lived]]), and while she still has a rebellious streak, she's a lot less overtly angry and contrarian. In the sequel [[spoiler:in the timeline where she lives, her hair is now much longer, and only dyed on the ends, and she's much chiller (and has a better relationship with her step father).]]

** ''VideoGame/Persona2'': Eikichi dyes his hair dark blue with a lighter blue patch at the front to match his VisualKei aesthetic and his dreams of becoming a rock star. The dye is temporary because he thinks his conservative father would disapprove. While he does have the reputation of a deliquent due to being a known name in an all-boys school and a BullyHunter, he's actually the one keeping order in the place and encouraging all the other students to try their best.

*** Ryuji dyes his hair blonde ''because'' everyone thinks he's a deliquent, as a minor form of rebellion against the teacher that ended his dreams of a sports career and his former friends that abandoned him. However, that's as far as it goes, and he's actually a perfectly nice and decent guy.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', Mayor Mare is an inversion: her hair is naturally vivid pink, but she dyes it gray, making her look older and more befitting an authority figure, but also making her stand out among the pony populace for not having brightly colored hair.
* ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': Implied to be the reason for the blonde streaks in Auntie Eggplant's hair. None of the other Bortronians have that in their hair, and Eggplant has been shown to surprisingly cunning. This means it could very well be a rebellious fashion statement.

** ''Pahkitew Island'' introduces Max, a [[EvilIsHammy hammy]] [[BigBadWannabe wannabe supervillain]] whose obsession with evil and mad science seems to prevent him from having friends. His purple bowlcut makes his oddity more obvious.

* ''Series/GilmoreGirls'': Lane ''attempts'' to do this in "One's Got Class and the Other One Dyes" by turning her black hair "Manic Panic Purple" to match her punk rock persona. But once it's done, she chickens out at the thought of her [[MyBelovedSmother mother]] seeing it, and dyes it back to her normal color. However, she takes some joy in the fact that her hair is still ''technically'' dyed, and keeps the one picture Rory took of her purple hair as a token of her brief rebellion.

* In ''VideoGame/NoUmbrellasAllowed'', Nari has the fringes of her hair dyed teal, highlighting her serious, abrasive personality when it comes to making art in a {{Dystopia}} where almost everyone's emotions are suppressed by the Fixer drug.

* ''Series/GinnyAndGeorgia'': Ginny experiments with a more unconventional with her style in Season 2, which includes dying blue streaks into her hair.

* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}:

* ''VideoGame/Persona2'': Eikichi dyes his hair dark blue with a lighter blue patch at the front to match his VisualKei aesthetic and his dreams of becoming a rock star. The dye is temporary because he thinks his conservative father would disapprove. While he does have the reputation of a deliquent due to being a known name in an all-boys school and a BullyHunter, he's actually the one keeping order in the place and encouraging all the other students to try their best.
* ''VideoGame/Persona5''
** Ryuji dyes his hair blonde ''because'' everyone thinks he's a deliquent, as a minor form of rebellion against the teacher that ended his dreams of a sports career and his former friends that abandoned him. However, that's as far as it goes, and he's actually a perfectly nice and decent guy.
** Futaba, the quirky hacker and hardcore gamer Otaku dyes her hair orange, even though she never leaves the house.

The rationale for doing so is quite simple: these characters reject societal conventions and stand out in a crowd, so they reject 'conventional' hair colors as a visual signifier. They contrast people who stick to their natural hair colors or, if they do dye their hair, keep it to other natural colors or subtler, more elegant color modifications like highlights. For example, a traditionalist or conservative parent might dislike the fact that their child dyes their hair orange.

** One of the antisocial Goth Kids, Pete, has {{Peekabangs}} with a red streak.