While picking up my favorite drugstore indulgence, Essie nail polish, yesterday I spotted something I’d never thought I’d see at the checkout – a fashion magazine with a pink-haired cover girl! I did not even look at the title. I just slapped it down and told the cashier, “I need one of these.” What my impulse buy actually was, was Katy Perry gracing the cover of InStyle magazine with her new mauve-lollipop hair. And yes, she did the real deal – this is not a wig! While the photoshoot is reportedly modeled after scenes from Blade Runner, I feel like the curls and crazy fascinator feel more post-modern Wizard of Oz than anything else.

Pink and pastel hair in general is turning into quite the trend with the Hollywood glitterati set – anything to shake up the press, I presume – but the after-effect is trickling down into high fashion styles for runways and photoshoots. As much as I love street snap tumblrs of real girls with pink or otherwise alt-colored hair, there’s something haunting and inspiring to see how the high fashion world twists the colors.

Ellie Goulding for Glamour // above three mylitleponyhair // Katy Perry // Sam A. at Lookbook.nu // unknown

To get Katy Perry’s violet-tinged pink instead of the usual pale peach-leaning pink, try mixing a little of Special Effect’s Virgin Rose in with your usual pink concoction (mine is currently Manic Panic’s Cotton Candy Pink, heavily diluted). Mixing your own colors with the high dye is not only easy, you can create unique colors all your own with varied tones besides what everyone else gets out of the bottle.

By the way – think pink is a 21st century trend? Slate.com has evidence that pink hair was popular as early as 1914 in America. Using the power of Google, you can actually read decades old newspapers – and there it is, in black and white. I guess it’s true – everything always comes back into fashion (still, can we get off the 60s and 70s jag and try another time period now, mainstream fashion world?!)

It’s interesting to watch alt-colored hair wander out of the ‘punk and artsy’ box and mess with the idea of mainstream fashion. While I doubt it will be as ubiquitous at your local mall as, say, the average blonde highlights, it does offer a fresh perspective on the elegance and wearability of unnaturally colored hair.

In honor of this post (and because I know someone is gonna ask…) I did a complete makeover to the original 2009 Parfait Doll (then Lolita Charm) pink hair guide. (Some of the older posts didn’t transfer well from Blogspot to WordPress… unfortunately this means correcting them by hand…) Not only was it a graphic mess, but the text was just thin and poorly written. I hope you’ll find the new pink hair guide satisfactory!

Pink Please!: The Pink Hair Guide

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here’s also the link to Pink Hair for Hope - $10 donation and you can get pink extension highlights at a salon in your state. (Connecticut has the country’s highest rate of breast cancer… please support!)