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...and braids it, too!

"And can I just ask, what's with the Make-Over of the Damned? I mean, the hair...!"
Xander on Dark Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

You've just got a power boost. The reasons may vary, whether it's from going into Super Mode, your Superpowered Evil Side deciding to wake up, you finally got your hands on that MacGuffin you've been after, you Came Back Strong, whatever. The point is, you're now capable of destroying the world three times over, and you can feel it.

The first thing your friend says? "Dude, nice dye job!"

Power Dyes Your Hair is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a Power Makeover that dyes hair. The degree in which this happens can vary; on the one hand, a character may only have their hair change a few shades, especially if their hair's already light to begin with. Other times, a character may go straight from having black hair to blonde or white. Often, this is a good way for a character to maintain a Secret Identity, as the change isn't permanent. Bonus Points if Power Makes Your Hair Grow. May also result from Paint It Black, if the power surge isn't a positive thing for the heroes.

Compare Locked into Strangeness, which is what happens when the color change is permanent. A subtrope of Kaleidoscope Hair, when the color change can be for any reason. An Anime Hair trope, obviously.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Ah! My Goddess, the goddess Belldandy wears special earrings to contain her power. When she takes them off, her hair goes from blonde to silver.
  • Bleach:
    • Ichigo's hair turns black upon activating the Final Getsuga Tenshou.
    • Ginjou's hair turns white upon activating bankai.
    • Rukia's hair turns white upon activating bankai.
  • Buso Renkin: When a person transforms into one of the super-human Walking Wastelands known as a Victor their hair turns white (light green in the anime) and gives off an eerie glow.
  • In Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, Izanami, sort of formerly known as Yin, has fluorescent blue hair where once she had more standard bluish-white hair, because she is now an Apocalypse Maiden.
  • Digimon:
    • BanchoLeomon of Digimon Data Squad has a Burst Mode that gives him a Battle Aura and turns his normally silver hair bright orange.
    • MadLeomon of Digimon Fusion has a black mane, which tends to change color when he DigiFuses. MadLeomon Orochi Mode has a deep yellow mane while Final Mode has a reddish brown mane.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • In Dragon Ball Z, Super Saiyans. A Super Saiyan's hair turns bright gold and their eyes turn green. Amusingly, the hair turning yellow was done so that Toriyama and his inker would save time by not having to ink Goku's normally black hair. At one point, Chi Chi lampshades this when she sees Gohan in this form for the first time and starts berating him for dyeing his hair.
    • Broly's Legendary Super Saiyan turns his hair a mix of gold and green, although this may be a side-effect of his Restraining Bolt.
    • His alternate universe counterpart Kale's hair also turns a green tinted gold, so it's likely in the nature of the transformation.
    • The Super Saiyan God's hair turns red and a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan's hair turns blue (thus its alternate name, Super Saiyan Blue).
    • In Dragon Ball Super, Goku Black's version of the above form, Super Saiyan Rosé, turns his hair soft pink.
    • And as it turns out Ultra Instinct turns the hair a shining silver, much like the Angels that invented it.
    • In Dragon Ball Super, Ultra Ego turns the hair purple.
    • In Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Gohan's "Beast" form turns his hair stark white.
  • In Fairy Tail, Wendy Marvell, whose hair is normally blue, has pink hair when she enters Dragon Force.
  • Flip Flappers: The three main girls' hair colors turn drastically different when they enter their Magical Girl forms; Cocona goes from dark blue to hot pink, Papika shifts from bright orange to cyan blue while Yayaka's pink-streaked blond becomes neon green with lavender streaks.
  • The second series of Gravion, Gravion Zwei, it's revealed that Sandman was originally blond, and that his purple hair is a side effect of his immortality, invoked by his G Factor.
  • Variation: the wi "Charcoal Feathers" in Haibane Renmei slowly turn from light charcoal grey to inky black if they become "sin bound" by doing poorly in their Redemption Quest.
  • Inuyasha: Inverted by Inuyasha. His hair is naturally snow white due to his status as a very powerful human-youkai hybrid. During the night of the new moon, his powers disappear, leaving him almost fully human. As his powers leave, his hair turns jet black. As his powers return with the rising sun, his hair transforms back to white again.
  • In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, powerup-related hair color changes are usually permanent and signify the character reaching a higher level of Stand power.
    • Diamond is Unbreakable:
      • Yukako Yamagishi offers an inversion as her hair turns from raven black to pure white when her Stand, Love Deluxe, is defeated. This isn't permanent though.
      • Yoshikage Kira's previously black hair turns white with black streaks when he unlocks Killer Queen's Bites the Dust.
    • Golden Wind: After Giorno Giovanna gains his Stand, his hair goes from black to blonde, permanently.
  • In K: Return of Kings, the Green King's hair changes from black to white when he unleashes his powers.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
    • When Belkan knights enter Unison with their Device, their hair usually changes color to a much lighter shade. Unison with Reinforce Eins or Zwei usually results in white or pale blue hair tint, while Agito's Unison turns Zest's hair yellow and Signum's pale purple.
    • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, Victoria's hair will glow blue when she's using her powerful lightning spells.
    • In Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, Thoma's hair becomes white when accessing his Black Knight form via Reacting with Lily (a process that is so suspiciously similar to a Unison that Reinforce Zwei is actually able to coach the two of them in its use).
  • Medaka Box: Medaka Kurokami's War God Mode turns her hair fluorescent pink, Altered God Mode and End God Mode turns it black, Forsaken God Mode turns it white, and Combined God Mode turns it black and white.
  • In Monochrome Factor, whenever Akira becomes a Shin, his hair turns black.
  • In Mushishi, one Victim of the Week's hair is green because she's merging with a mobile, living swamp, though it turns back to normal once She Gets Better.
  • In Naruto, anyone who becomes the ten-tails jinchuriki has their hair bleached pure white.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Negi Springfield has his hair turn white during his Magia Erebea.
    • Mana Tatsumiya has her hair turn white when releasing her full power.
  • One Piece:
    • After Hody Jones overdosed on Energy Steroids, he became much more powerful amd his hair turned pure white. The whitening of his hair is eventually revealed to be an early clue regarding the Rapid Aging side effect of consuming the Energy Steroid.
    • When memebers of the Mink tribe transform into their Sulong forms, not only do they gain Mystical White Hair, but their hair also grows longer and wilder.
    • Luffy's Gear Fifth form turns his hair slate white, and somehow also dyes his jacket and pants as well.
  • In Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Mallow, Lillie, and Lana go through this in their Magical Girl episode when they transform. Mallow's hair turns pink, Lillie's turns blue and Lana's turns yellow.
  • This tends to happen in the Pretty Cure franchise.
    • In addition to getting absurd hairstyles, Pretty Cures' hair get a lot brighter in color — examples being in HeartCatch Pretty Cure! with Tsubomi/Cure Blossom and Erika/Cure Marine, and in Smile PreCure! with Nao/Cure March.
    • This, of course, is averted in the first series, when the eye color of the main characters change and it's implied that anyone can recognize them if they take a good look. Of course, you can count on one hand the number of times where they battled in the presence of someone, since every time the villains appear, everyone conveniently faints, and the few times someone awaken in the middle of the fight, they never get to see their faces.
    • Go! Princess Pretty Cure invokes this during the transformation sequence with everyone's hair becoming lighter and adding ombre elements as the final stage of their transformation/when placing their crowns on their heads.
    • The most extreme cases have complete color changes:
      • Fresh Pretty Cure! Setsuna's dark purple changes to pink as Cure Passion.
      • Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Hibiki's orange-brown hair changes to pink as Cure Melody, and Kanade's brown hair changes to blonde as Cure Rhythm.
      • Doki Doki! PreCure: Mana's magenta hair changes to blonde as Cure Heart.
      • HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!: Yuko's brown hair becomes golden-yellow as Cure Honey.
      • Go! Princess Pretty Cure: Haruka's orange-brown hair turns blonde with pink streaks as Cure Flora, and Towa's red hair changes to pink as Cure Scarlet. Downplayed with Minami/Cure Mermaid and Kirara/Cure Twinkle, whose hair colors brighten and gain differently-colored highlights but don't change color completely.
      • KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode: Ichika's orange hair becomes magenta as Cure Whip, and Ciel's blonde hair becomes pink as Cure Parfait.
      • HuGtto! Pretty Cure: Emiru's medium-brown hair becomes platinum blonde as Cure Macherie.
      • Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure: Chiyu's black hair becomes blue as Cure Fontaine, Hinata's brown hair becomes golden yellow as Cure Sparkle, and Asumi's pale blonde hair becomes lavender as Cure Earth.
      • Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: Manatsu's dark orange hair becomes golden yellow with pink highlights as Cure Summer.
      • Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: Yui and Ran both have brown hair, but their hair colors respectively change to pink and blonde as Cure Precious and Cure Yum-Yum. Amane's dark purple hair changes into blonde as Cure Finale.
      • Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure: Ageha's cinnamon-brown hair turns blonde with orange highlights as Cure Butterfly. Mashiro downplays it; her peachy-brown hair becomes pink as Cure Prism.
      • Wonderful Pretty Cure!: Komugi's brown hair turns pink with blonde highlights at the ends, Iroha's peach-orange hair turns bright blonde as Cure Friendy and Mayu's dark brown hair turns sea-blue as Cure Lillian.
  • In Princess Resurrection, Hiro's hair turns white whenever he senses Hime in danger.
  • More or less in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. While the color doesn't change, the cast's hair colors become more vibrant in their Magical Girl forms (in Homura's case, it gets darker).
  • In Rosario + Vampire, Moka gains silver hair when she takes her rosario off and gains her true vampire power.
  • In Sands of Destruction, Kyrie's hair goes from blond to red when he regains his memories of being the Destruct Code and goes into super-awesome-killer mode. And, of course, it goes back to his normal blond afterward.
  • Takao Saito's manga The Shadowman stars a young man who was exposed to a flawed genetic experiment which gave him superhuman physical abilities after a period of time away from direct sunlight. As a side-effect, while powered-up, he has solid black skin and stark white hair.
  • In Shamanic Princess, Lena's hair turns from green to blonde while Tiara's goes from orange to red when they transform.
  • In Shugo Chara!'s anime, all of the Character Changes has this happen. With some Red Eyes, Take Warning added.
  • An example that actually predates Dragon Ball Z is Go Nagai's Shutendoji, where the main character gains golden hair after getting his ogre blood powerup (he also grows horns, by the way). By the end of the story, he has got his natural brown hair back and lost his horns.
  • Space Patrol Luluco: Luluco's transformation into Trigger-chan turns her hair pink.
  • All Magical Girl protagonists from Studio Pierrotnote  undergoes this:
  • In Tenchi Muyo!, when Kagato starts draining Ryoko's energy, his hair floofs with power.
  • Tokyo Ghoul: After Kaneki's torture, his hair turns white coinciding directly with when he Took a Level in Badass.
  • Tokyo Mew Mew:
    • In the 2002 anime, Ichigo's Transformation Sequence, in addition to turning her into a Cat Girl and giving her nice Magical Girl clothes, changes her hair from dark red to pink, and the rest of the girls also have their hair colors changed to brighter shades.
    • Another example, present in both the anime and the manga, is dark-haired Aoyama transforming into the blonde Mysterious Protector Blue Knight, which is slightly odd, because as the Big Bad Deep Blue, he has black hair again; though this one has an excuse of being a part of the Red Herring designed to conceal the character's identity from the audience, not just from the characters.
  • In Umi Monogatari, Kanon's hair becomes lighter and has a different shape when transformed.
  • Usagi-chan de Cue!!: As Mimika, she's a fragile blonde with the mind of a rabbit, prone to fleeing when confronted. As Inaba, she's an ass-kicking raven-haired Action Girl that makes lesser mooks flee from her.
  • Happens in two ways for a Primagista performs in Waccha PriMagi!:
    • There are some Primagistas who undergo a complete change in appearance. Matsuri’s hair went from orange to hot pink and peach ombre with pastel blue streaks on her braid, while Amane’s hair went from light brown to dark red with silver streak as an accent. Jennifer’s pale green hair becomes yellow with pink and blue streaks.
    • Subverted for those only adding streak into their civilian ones (Hina gains purple streaks on her orange hair, Lemon’s yellow hair now gains green and cyan streaks, Miruki gains a pale blonde hair alongside her civilian pink, and Auru only gains a green streak over her dark green hair).
  • In Witchblade, Masane's brown hair turns red when she activates the Witchblade and after being corrupted with her powers, Masane's hair changes from red to white.
    • This applies to the Cloneblade users as well. Reina has blue hair in human form that turns white with pink stripes. Shiori has brown hair in human form that turns light gray when she transforms and then lavender in her second form.
  • More subtle example in Yu-Gi-Oh!, when Yugi switches to Yami Yugi, lightning bolts of blonde hair extend upwards from his bangs that aren't there as regular Yugi.
  • When Yuma merges with Astral in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, his dark blue becomes blonde while retaining his pink hair in ZEXAL form. The former becomes black alongside his dark pink hair as Dark ZEXAL, orange as ZEXAL II, and returned back to blonde as ZEXAL III.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS does this a lot for duelists who transform into completely different alter-ego avatars in virtual world:
    • Yusaku’s blue and pink hair changes into blonde, red and pearl pink when he assumed Playmaker form.
    • Aoi’s light brown hair changes into blue with azure linings as Blue Angel and Blue Girl, and reversed these when assuming Blue Maiden form.
    • Naoki’s dark green hair becomes red when he’s in Brave Max form.
    • Ryoken‘s white and indigo hair turns into dark crimson and red hair and later, grey hair with two-tone red hair as Revolver.
    • Emma is a subversion, as her lavender and pink hair partially becomes gray as Ghost Girl.
    • Takeru’s white and red hair becomes turquoise, blue and orange as Soulburner.
  • Yuki Yuna is a Hero: When in Hero form the usually redheaded Yuna gains pink hair.
  • YuYu Hakusho: Karasu's black hair turns blond when he enters his Super Mode.

    Comic Books 
  • Many Marvel mutants, upon getting their powers at puberty, also get weird-colored hair. (Or, as in Professor X's case, they lose it entirely.)
  • Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld: Inverted. On Earth, Amy's mother dyed their hair to hide their true heritage. When they enter Gemworld, the power within them is too strong to hide their true hair colors, which reveals their natural blonde hair. It also lengthened their hair past their shoulders.
  • Samaritan of Astro City ended up with blue hair after becoming super. He can turn it white to maintain his secret identity, but it goes blue again when he starts using his power. The same thing happened to his arch-enemy Infidel, whose powers come from the same source — when Infidel gained his powers, his black hair turned green. When not using his powers, his hair is blond.
  • When Tammy Adami from C.O.V.E.N. gets a power surge from being experimented on by the Alchemist, her blonde hair turns neon violet.
  • Before DC Rebirth turned her into a Redhead In Green, June Moone's hair would change from blonde to black whenever she transformed into the Enchantress.
  • Being part of the Vigil of Death Vigil dyes the person's hair white among the bonuses of gaining immortality and a personalized veilripper. The Reaper's scythe also gives its wielder an Undeathly Pallor.
  • Doctor Strange briefly turned into a long-haired blond after absorbing the power of one of Shuma-Gorath's generals. He had such an excess of power that he not only obliterated Shuma, he had to 'decompress' through a dozen dimensions, shedding power as he went, just to reach the level where he could safely return to Earth without destroying it.
  • In Marvel Comics Generic Comic Book, The Hero's hair turned white when he got his superpowers.
  • The second Dove of Hawk and Dove has blonde hair as a civilian, which lightens to become white when she transforms into her superhero mode.
  • The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): As a civilian Tomas Byde has dusty orange hair, but as the Duke of Deception his hair glows red.
  • Relative Heroes: Damara's hair turns pink at the tips when she's consciously putting force into using her powers.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • Knuckles' fur turns green after he evolves into Chaos Knuckles.
    • Before becoming Scourge, Evil-Sonic had blue fur just like Sonic. After exposure to the Master Emerald, his fur turned green and he gained a boost in strength and stamina. He also had a super state of his own, which turns his fur purple.
  • Supreme's hair turned white when he gained his powers.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • Frozen (2013):
    • Elsa is born with ice powers and has platinum blonde hair, despite having a father who is a redhead and a mother who is a brunette. Word of God states that had Elsa been born without powers, she would have been a brunette like her mother.
    • When Anna is struck by Elsa at youth, a tendril of her hair where hit turns a pale off-white. When she was struck in the chest, thus freezing her heart, her hair starts to gradually turn silvery white over time. Her hair returns to normal when her curse is broken, with the white streak gone completely.
  • Heavy Metal: The unnamed girl's hair goes from dirty blonde to white and even grows to her mid-back as she is revealed to be the new Tarna.
  • Monsters vs. Aliens has Susan Murphy/Ginormica, whose hair turned white after the quantonium she absorbed turned her into a giant. Notably, she retains the white hair even after having the quantonium (temporarily) taken from her body.
  • My Little Pony: A New Generation: At the end of the movie, after Sunny becomes an alicorn, a couple of rainbow streaks appear in her mane.
  • Rise of the Guardians: Back when he was human, Jack Frost had brown hair and brown eyes. As Jack Frost, his hair is white and his eyes are blue. The actual change is shown during the flashback to when Jack drowned in a frozen pond, and was subsequently turned into the spirit of winter by the Man in the Moon.
  • Song of the Sea: Saoirse's hair gradually starts bleaching to white. It's actually a bad thing because she's a selkie, and the hair bleaching is tied to her deteriorating health due to being separated from her sealskin coat. It's completely white by the time she's on the brink of death. When she finally gets her coat back and her health and powers are restored, her hair goes back to its natural dark brown. This phenomenon is standard for selkies, as her mother Bronagh had the same thing happen to her when her pregnancy with Saoirse started going wrong.
  • Tangled has an interesting variation, where the main character was born with her hair dyed by power of the sun. When cut, her hair loses magic powers and returns to its natural brown color. When she's invoking her powers (to heal wounds etc.) the hair glows even brighter which becomes very useful when she and her friend are trapped in an underwater cave.
  • In Turning Red, any descendant of Sun Yee who is playing host to a red panda spirit has her hair turn vivid red, and it stays red as long as the panda spirit is present. When the spirit is banished into a talisman, the person's hair returns to its old color. For Mei, this becomes Locked into Strangeness when she chooses to keep her panda spirit instead of banishing it.

    Films — Live Action 
  • The titular character from Bastard Swordsman, upon learning the invincible "Silkworm Technique" technique, instantly have his hair turning from black to silver-white.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Pietro Maximoff makes a cameo appearance in the mid-credits stinger of Captain America: The Winter Soldier sporting dark brown hair and newly discovered super speed. By Avengers: Age of Ultron, he has white hair to reflecting his increased control over his powers.
    • Similarly, his sister Wanda's hair has consistently lightened with each subsequent appearance, going from dark brown in Age of Ultron to a very vivid red in Avengers: Infinity War.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand has Jean Grey returning from the grave with much longer and more vivid red hair as a sign of both her tremendously powerful abilities now unleashed, and the dominance of the Dark Phoenix.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse shows Storm only gaining her signature white hair when Apocalypse gives her a power upgrade.

    Literature 
  • The Beginning After the End: Arthur's red hair turns white like Sylvia's whenever he taps into her Beast Will.
  • Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.: Maple's black hair turns blonde when she transforms into an angel using Loving Sacrifice.
  • The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress has a Justified example in book 2 - Sven's hair was designed as a radiator to vent excess heat, so releasing her Power Limiters burns away the black hair dye she'd been using as a disguise, reverting it to its natural silver colour.
  • The Devil is a Part-Timer!: Emilia's hair turns white when she uses her "sacred power" abilities, which is basically Holy Magic. There doesn't seem to be much of difference between it and regular magic in the series however other than the name.
  • In the eponymous Dragonrealm, created by Richard A. Knaak, people who have latent or active magical power will also have a wide silver streak in their hair corresponding to their level of ability. The streak grows larger as the person actually taps into their power. (The only given exception to this being Cade, whose hair color, for unknown reasons, fluctuates so that on any given day his hair might be all silver or it might be almost completely brown.)
  • In The Grisha Trilogy Alina's hair turns from her natural brown to white after she uses a much stronger, darker brand of Grisha power known as merzost
  • Heralds of Valdemar: In Velgarth, sufficient magic use will not only bleach a mage's hair prematurely white, it will also turn his eyes blue. This is why the Companions are gleaming white and have blue eyes.
  • Akane in Kämpfer turns into a Fiery Redhead in her Kämpfer form, Shizuku's normally black hair turns white on the underside and Mikoto's hair turns white.
  • Journey to Chaos:
    • Kasile would be a natural brunette if not for her Royal Blood. It creates streaks of fire red.
    • Whenever a human becomes a transhuman, their hair color will shift to reflect the color of the power that changed them. Zettai's blonde becomes blood red after becoming a Bladi.
  • In Lightning Dust, Klaus Melfton's hair turns electric yellow when he becomes the eponymous hero.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Justified. Nanao has a trait called "innocent color" which causes her normally black hair to turn white when she draws magical power. Oliver's narration explains that it only happens in mages with exceptional magical circulation and a crystalline hair structure that allows uninterrupted flow of magical particles.
  • In The Silent War the immortal Redcloaks never show any sign of ageing past 20, except that their hair gradually turns white between 100-150. Serdra is halfway through this process, and says that the elders consider fully white hair a mark of "adulthood".
  • Slayers: Lina's Giga Slave puts a severe drain on her energy whenever she uses it and thus leaves her red hair a platinum blonde that is so light it's almost silver for a day or so after she casts it. Not to mention that time it glowed golden because the spell involved channelling the Lord of Nightmares, who replaced her soul when it backfired.
  • In The Vampire Diaries: The Return, the Kitsune hair shimmers red when they are using their powers.
  • Sort of applies in Warbreaker; royals of the tiny mountain kingdom have what is called "The Royal Locks," hair that changes color at will. (They can also grow it at will.) This power has more applications than you'd think, in a world whose magical system mostly revolves around color.
    • It also changes involuntarily in response to their emotions. When Siri is traveling to the city to marry the God-King, she's so terrified that her hair stays white the entire way.
    • When Vivenna is living on the street, her hair stays white the entire time as she's starving and can't spare the energy to make it any other color.

    Live-Action TV 
  • On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after Tara dies and Willow absorbs the blackest magics right out of their tomes, her normally red hair changes to match, as do her eyes. Conversely, when she activates all the Slayers, her hair briefly goes white. Basically, she's Color-Coded for Your Convenience to indicate if she's casting powefully good or powerfully evil magic.
  • Used as a joke in the season 5 premiere of Charmed (1998) to Hand Wave Rose McGowan dying her hair from brown to red. The show's explanation is that a potion blew up on her and turned her hair that way.
    • Phoebe's hair turns white when she is turned into a banshee and it later turns blonde when she is turned into a genie.
  • In The Flash (2014), Caitlin's hair turns white when she uses her powers.
  • The BBC's Jekyll has this as a fairly major physical difference between the meek Dr Jackman and the psychopathic superpowered Mr Hyde— Hyde's hairline is different, but is also much darker.
  • Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: the characters all have normal hair in civilian ID and it turns brightly colored when they transform.

    Video Games 
  • In ANNO: Mutationem, everytime Ann awakens her Super Mode, her hair changes from black to turquoise along with being given a slight growth.
  • Blue Reflection has protagonist Hinako Shirai go from her naturally blackbrown hair to a sandy blonde when she transforms into her Reflector form.
  • In Breath of Fire III, turning into a Kaiser form causes the main character's hair to turn gold and sparkle.
  • Both played straight and inverted in Celeste, where both power and the lack of power dye your hair. Madeline's default hair color is red, but when she uses an air dash her hair turns blue as a visual indicator that she can't air dash anymore until she either touches the ground or interacts with something that refreshes her air dash. In the original version of Celeste that can be found and played in-game, Madeline eventually gets a power-up that gives her a second air dash, indicated by her hair flashing green and when she acquires this power within the story, it turns her hair pink.
  • In Clash of Clans, Archers go from pink-haired to purple-haired as they level up.
  • Criminal Case: The Conspiracy: During the last case, Rita's hair turns from brunette to light blue when she uses a serum that gives her superpowers to protect her friends and family from an army of superhumans.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • In DmC: Devil May Cry, going Devil Trigger causes Dante's hair to become bright white and his coat to blood-red (making him look more like the original continuity's Dante). By the end, excessive Devil Triggering has caused his hair to become permanently white. This is in contrast to most of the playable characters in the original continuity, where going Devil Trigger causes a full-body transformation instead.
    • Devil May Cry 5 has an inverted example with V. He is shown with black hair in most of his screentime and gameplay. Summoning Nightmare turns his hair white, but it's actually his natural hair color. This is first shown in the flashback scene when Vergil split himself in two; V has white hair by default when he emerged. If Griffon and Shadow make up parts of his body tattoos, Nightmare is the familiar that dyes V's hair when it's not summoned yet. The player can notice this more easily in-game during Mission 14; V's familiars are taken away from him so his hair turns white and his tattoos fade away, but retrieving Nightmare recolors V's hair into black.
  • Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories does this with Rozalin, when she reverts back to her Overlord Zenon state.
  • Dragalia Lost: Euden’s Bondforged Form has the lower end of his hair turn green.
  • In Dragon Quest VIII, when the main character builds his tension high enough, his hair becomes lighter and spiky. Not that strange considering that Akira Toriyama did the character designs. And the main character in particular looks a lot like Teen Gohan, which becomes especially obvious at max tension when his bandana comes off and the hair spikes up.
  • Inverted Fancy Pants Adventures: World 3. The initial antagonist is a pirate with a rainbow-colored beard, which causes him ridicule and a coup from his ship. When the player fetches him hair dye of Norris, the pirate restores his men's support and reclaims his ship from the ninjas that invaded in his absence.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, the Trance System has this effect on every character whose hair we can see. The heroes turn into a white-silver color despite their default. The main villain's hair turns from silver to blood-red.
    • Zidane, though, doesn't turn silver. He goes blonde to pink!
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: When Sothis bequeaths her power to Byleth the latter's hair (and eyes) change color from their natural teal to a bright green, much like the other Children of the Goddess. Additionally those artificially implanted with a second Crest, like Edelgard and Lysithea, have their hair bleached stark white, along with other, less benign side effects.
  • Fire Emblem Engage: This is what happens when someone merges with an Emblem. Their clothes change and their hair turns into a different color depending on the Emblem. For example, merging with Marth or Lucina turns the unit's hair light blue, merging with Celica turns their hair red, merging with Corrin turns their hair white, merging with Byleth turns their hair a light purple, etc.
  • Giana Sisters DS: Giana's hair changes from blonde to a dark red upon turning Punk.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: When Terra gets possessed by Xehanort, his hair goes from brown to silver, and his eyes from blue to gold. At first appears to be a case of Locked into Strangeness, until it gets reversed in Kingdom Hearts III when he and Sora work together to kick Xehanort's heart out.
  • The King of Fighters:
    • When the Orochi blood of Leona Heidern takes control of her, she awakens her Superpowered Evil Side and her hair changes from blue to red.
    • A non-Orochi example is Kula Diamond, whose hair changes from a chestnut color to light blue when using her ice powers.
  • In the original The Last Blade, Kaede can awaken his inner powers and become more powerful, faster, and blond. He keeps that guise for the second installment of the series.
  • In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, whenever Rean uses Spirit Unification, his hair turns from black to white, his Battle Aura is showing, and his eyes turn red. After losing control of his power in III and starting the Great Twilight, he becomes trapped in an enhanced version with demonic eyes; once Class VII old and new manage to bring him back to his senses in the next game's Fragments chapter, he reverts back to his original Spirit Unification form sans Battle Aura and is trapped in that form for the rest of the game, the demonic form he had been trapped in becoming his new enhanced form. In the Golden Ending of the game, his hair returning to its regular color is a sign things are finally back to normal.
  • Mega Man:
    • In Mega Man ZX Advent, Vent/Aile obtain blonde hair when they transformed into Mega Man ZX.
    • Both Geo and Sonia in Mega Man Star Force change hair color when they undergo EM Wave Change. Geo's brown hair gains a distinct violet tint as Mega Man, while Sonia goes from purple to blonde when she becomes Harp Note.
  • In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, getting different power ups changes Rayman's hair to the same colour as that power up.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei V, The Nahobino had black hair initially, but after fusing with Aogami, he gains the latter's blue hair and develops Supernatural Gold Eyes.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic has his Super Form; after collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds, he turns gold, his eyes turn red, and is basically invincible.
    • This is taken Up To Eleven in Sonic 3 & Knuckles with Hyper Sonic. Sonic's fur changes colors 14 times a second in this form, following the pattern of white, green, white, orange, white, gold, white, etc.
    • When Blaze the Cat becomes Burning Blaze via the power of the Sol Emeralds, her lavender fur turns pink.
    • Silver the Hedgehog has his white fur turn golden-yellow when he enters his own Super State. Like with Sonic, his eyes also turn red.
    • Shadow's black fur turns into a golden lemon-cream color and his eye color becomes completely ruby red. Other than that, his additional fur colors, and quill style remains unchanged.
  • Suiko Enbu (AKA Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty): Upon being defeated in one round, Chao Gai transforms into a more powerful form. Of the features of this second form is his black hair turning into a Unmatted golden mane.
  • The Hairstylist in Terraria sells you special dyes that take more vibrant colors if you're at full health, full magic, or have lots of coins. The Clothier sells clothing dyes that have the same effect on your outfit.
  • In Touhou Gensokyo ~ Lotus Land Story, the first boss's namesake orange hair inexplicably turns blue during her final attack.
  • Twisted Wonderland: Silver's actual hair color is blond. Once Lilia found him as a baby and renewed his blessing and protection, his hair turned silver and has stayed that way since, hence his name.
  • In the WarioWare games, when Ashley gets angry or is about to cast a spell, her hair turns from black to white.
  • In XCOM 2, soldiers who become psi-operatives will have their hair dyed white (and their eyes turn purple) automatically, though the soldier's customization options can revert this.
  • In Xenogears, Fei Wong's hair is dark but turns red when he becomes Id.

    Visual Novels 
  • In the climax of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Hajime's hair turns pure white after breaking through his Heroic BSoD and asserting that he is not Izuru Kamukura.
  • Koujaku's bad ending in DRAMAtical Murder features his Superpowered Evil Side taking over (which dyes his hair completely red) and Aoba having his Split Personality Sly Blue take over (which turns his hair and skin white).
  • Magical Warrior Diamond Heart: All the Crystal Warriors get this treatment when they turn into their magical forms. Downplayed with Sophia, Zacherie and Clover who follow the Heartcatch Precure example above but played straight with the other Crystal Warriors; Valerie goes from red to bright pink, Amber goes from dark brown to blond, Alex goes from black to red and Liam goes from blond to bright green.
  • Tsukihime: Tohno Akiha's hair changes to a bright red when her Superpowered Evil Side comes out.

    Web Comics 
  • When Apricot from Apricot Cookie(s)! transforms, her hair changes to red and black.
  • El Goonish Shive:
    • First Inverted. Nanase's hair went black from temporarily losing her magic.
    • Later played with, as Susan's hair turns permanently blue-black when she Awakens. Later it turns out that her hair was literally colored with power, her long hair storing up power and returning to its original natural blonde as it releases the stored power when it's needed.
  • When a magical girl's powers awaken in Sleepless Domain their hair changes color to reflect their powers. The hair color stays the same even when they're untransformed, making them easily identifiable as celebrities, and it lasts as long as they're magical girls. Usually it goes back to normal when they lose their powers upon adulthood, but Tessa loses her pink hair when she gives up her powers to save Undine. Their eyes also change into the same or similar color, which is why it's unusual that Kokoro/Heartful Punch has pink hair but blue eyes. It was because she had been conceived while her mother Mitsuki was still a magical girl - the blue eyes come from her mother's powers, which left Mitsuki when she gave birth (signified by her hair color changing during a flashback montage).
  • In Wake of the Clash Racer’s hair turns purple when he suits up for some hero action. It is stated by the author that this is related to his powers, which are also coded purple.
  • Subtle; Tally from The Weave starts out with light blonde hair, but after her travel to the fairy world, it bleaches out to pure white.

    Web Animation 

    Western Animation 
  • Amphibia: When Anne finally taps into the power of the blue gem in "True Colors", her hair turns blue. In the series finale, Marcy and Sasha's hair change to green and pink when they tap into their powers.
  • Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld: Amy's hair changes color from regular blonde to strawberry blonde. When she taps into her full power, her hair gets even longer and turns purple.
  • Danny Phantom: When he transforms into his ghost form, Danny's black hair turns white. Oddly enough (possibly due to the different circumstances of their Freak Lab Accidents), Vlad Masters' black hair was permanently turned white when he gained his powers, but his hair turns black when he transforms into his ghost form.
  • Jade Armor: When transforming into Jade Armor, Lan Jun's hair color changes from purple to green.
  • The warrior princesses in Lolirock have their hair change color when they transform. Their hair also grows several inches longer.
  • Happens with a few Miraculous holders in Miraculous Ladybug; Rena Rouge's hair goes from brown with a red ombre to bright orange and white, Queen Bee gets a black streak running through her hair, King Monkey's hair goes from black and blonde to red, Pegasus' hair goes from brown to light blonde, and the dyed parts of Viperion's hair go from teal blue to aqua green.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Using the Crystal Heart causes all ponies in the vicinity to temporarily get crystalline coats, and for some reason gives all the female cast up-dos in their manes.
    • Similarly, when the cast gets powered up from the Tree of Harmony, they get rainbow streaks in their manes. For Rainbow Dash, whose hair is actually a rainbow, she just gets a major case of Expressive Hair.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
    • Happens most noticeably in past holder of the title named Mara. As seen in flashbacks, Mara actually has medium-brown hair, but the transformation into She-Ra causes her hair to become white-gold.
    • It's less obvious, but Adora's hair does this as well, going from a dirty blonde to a brighter, yellower shade when she transforms.
  • Spider-Man: The Animated Series: Felicia Hardy has blonde hair in civilian form that changes to white matching her comic book counterpart.
  • Tangled: The Series: Using the Reverse Incantation makes Rapunzel's hair and eyes go all black. Conversely, Cassandra's hair turns a bright turquoise color after taking the Moonstone.
  • Winx Club: When transforming into Sirenix, all the girls get streaks in their hair, with the added bonus that both their hair and hair streaks also turn into completely different colors entirely once going underwater. Bloom's hair also becomes less orange and turns a deeper shade of red in Sirenix, Bloomix and Mythix. Likewise, Aisha's hair also gets a few shades lighter in Bloomix form. The girls' hair also changes color or gains lighter highlights in their Enchantix form.
  • The Dragon Prince: Dark magic, especially necromancy, seems to bleach your hair. A strand of Claudia's hair turns white after healing Soren's paralysis, and half of her head turns white after she resurrects Viren.


 
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Persia's Transformation

Persia Hayami is an 11 year old girl, but thanks to the headband given to her by the Fairy Princess, she turns into an older girl who also has longer hair and magical superpowers. In her magical girl form, she works to collect Love Energy and save the fairy world from thawing over.

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