13 Year Old Daughter Wants to Dye Her Hair!

It's only hair. I dyed mine at 13 or 14 and loved it. I felt like such a super special girl for months. Looking back, I realize that I looked totally silly, but at the time I was so happy.

Unless you have a real reason why it would be a bad idea (family portrait? funeral?)... let her. It's a great way to let her rebel a little without truly rebelling.

What color does she want to do??

I personally don't see a probem with it as long as it's just an experimental and non-permanent thing.

I experimented with my hair and my daughter wanted to experiment with hers. I could tell you horror stories about some of the experiments, on MY hair. She actually went on to attend cosmetology school. Doing hair is her thing.

Having a few highlights is one thing. A complete head full of blue hair? Nope. Not at 13.

Just my opinion.

I wouldnt. Because the up keep is expensive, I would rather my 13 year old not walk around with 3 inch roots (classy), and I wouldnt pay to have it done every 3 months.
Shes only 13, I would focus on something else.

I had a wise psych professor who always said, ask yourself if it will effect their lives in five years, if the answer is no then it isn't a battle worth fighting.

My oldest daughter started dying her hair when she was 13, by the time she was 14 she was bored with it. She is now 22 and has yet to alter her hair since, besides an occasional hair cut.

I'm not a fan of anything permanent at this age, but I willingly helped my son use semi-transparent coloring when he was this age. His forest green hair was the best, although I thought his purple hair was great, too.

It's just hair! It grows out. Let her experiment a little with some highlights or some colorful streaks and see what she likes. No big deal.

My older daughter, now 27, tried a whole spectrum of colors and styles between junior high and finishing college. I think she may have been trying to shock me and she failed! I said, if you can't experiment with hair when you're young, then when can you? I told her she was beautiful, and she was, with black, bleached white, or magenta hair, and even when she took a clippers and cut it all off!

She has her natural dark brown color now in a conservative style. Youth is for experimenting!

my boys had hair every color of the rainbow. i don't get why a kid shouldn't!
khairete
S.

My line would probably be "bring me a report card with straight A's, and you can dye your hair any color you want." (If she was already getting straight A's, I'd probably give her the go-ahead.)

In other words, I am pretty lax about things like hair color, but I'm not above using an issue like hair color as leverage around things I really care about.

It's funny, though, a few people said, "If it looks natural, if it's not pink or blue, etc., it'd be okay." I would probably be *more* okay with a girl dying her hair pink or blue than with a girl trying to look like a bleached-blond barbie doll. I'm not going to do the best job in the world explaining why, but I'm wondering if anyone else feels the same.

I am a hairstylist, my opinion on this really depends on what she wants to.do with her hair. I would not suggest for a 13 year old to.do anything that requires a lot of upkeep. A good option for her would be to.go.with a semi or demi permanent color if she wants to go darker or redder, or a partial hilite if she wants to go lighter. If you go with hilites, do small pieces around the face in a color not more than a feiw levels lighter than her natural color so it will grow out gradually. Another good option is to do a hilite/lowlite, from a few feet away, her hair would look the same color, but up close it would have more dimension. I would call a salon, schedule a free consultation, then you can get a good idea of what she wants, what it will involve and how much it will cost. Then decide what you are going to do.

Around 8th - 9th grade is when most girls get their first chemical service, so shes about the right age. The rule I go by is As long as they have had their periods for.over a year, it means their hair is 'mature' enough to accept the color and not be damaged by it. I only recommend wash out colors up to that point, and will not perm girls younger than that. Good luck and Im envious of whoever gets to do her hair, I love doing girls first colors, they get so excited.

I'd have no problem with it, actually. When my daughter is 13 and she comes to me with the same issue, which she will I'm sure, I'll tell her "Cool, if you can pay for it, you can get it done." This isn't a battle I'd be willing to fight.

In our house, I wouldn't be opposed to it for social reasons. (It's just hair after all.) However we don't have money for extra beauty regimens. I cut all the hair in our house, except for the back of my hair, which I entrust to my husband and just cross my fingers he can cut a straight line.

Since we don't have an extra $14 to get a haircut, it stands to reason that we also don't have however much it costs to get hair dye, plus whatever money would be needed to fix a botched home dye job, should the dye job go awry.

So it's my prerogative that if she wants it, she should pay for it. At 13, that'll be hard to do since most 13 year olds get their money from mom and dad, and if mom and dad don't have money, neither does the 13 year old.

If money isn't an issue for you, I would let her experiment.

/EDIT - When you are a child, you don't need to worry about your looks costing you a job, so waiting until you're an adult to put that blue streak in your hair, or try a new color that may or may not flatter you, seems a little bit silly to me. Better to play with it when you are young when the repercussions aren't as harsh. The worst thing that could happen to a child is her peers could mock her. Let it grow back or dye it back to the way it was and no harm, no foul. Childhood is the time to play.

I would say why not? It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but I would probably make her pay for it herself.

Jo got it exactly right, in my opinion. There will be plenty of things your daughter wants to do that are worth a fight. I don't think this is one of them.

I say, let her go for it! If she doesn't like it she can always change it back.

If she is going for a color like green or pink or something like that, google how to dye your hair with kool-aid! My younger sister and her best friend do this all the time! I think they mix kool-aid with conditioner and it dyes their hair that color for about 2 weeks. It's cheap and it doesn't damage their hair like normal hair dye does.

Ha, our daughter asked for blue hair when she was about outrun 13. At her middle school, they did not allow, unnatural hair color.... And so she asked about the summer.we spoke with her hair dresser and she explained the process and cost.... Then the cost to take it back to the regular color in time for fall..

It was very expensive.... So we told our daughter for her birthday we would pay for the blue streaks, but she would need to pay to have it, brought back to normal, before school started.

All she asked for her birthday was money, to do her hair. She took on babysitting jobs too.

She is a good child who made excellent grades.. So we allowed it...

It was cute...but it was a pain in the summer...it fades in the sun, not good in chlorine and her hair grew fast and since they had to bleach that portion of her hair, they then had to color it back for school to start..

FYI, she decided, she liked having it for that time, but it was expensive nd she hated all of the time spent in the chair!

It was a good experience for her. It helped her take responsibility for these type of choices..

She is now 22 and no tattoos, no piercings and no hair colors....

It's just hair, and it's HER hair. Let her dye it if she wants to.

I see nothing wrong with it. I was 13 when I started dying my hair and since then I have never had my natural hair color. I just turned 32 yesterday :)

My 12 yo granddaughter and her friends have all experimented with hair dye. They haven't changed their entire hair color but have given themselves high lights and are now dying the ends with blue, pink, lavender colors. Putting color on their hair is part of the social norm now. It is done for their own pleasure. It's not a part of being sexy which is so often played up now a days. It's not a grown up thing at all. I suggest that putting this in the same arena as the essential things to wait until grown up years is trivializing other issues such as sexual behavior.

You really have to pick your battles as a parent, and all kids want to do things to show that they are independant and different. I have always been totally fine with all 4 of my kids coloring their hair, and even getting piercings, (depending on WHAT they wanted to do that is) , because the way I saw it hair grows out and even the jewlery could be taken out and the "holes" would close up. (I was ok with ears, eyebrow, nose) I was not ok with the ones that caused more than a hole, but instead a wound, like the belly button. WAY too much chance of infection there. That was my arguement. Luckily since I was ok with so many other options, my kids never really asked for any of the offending ones. :) I would not allow tattoos unless they were fake ones since they were permenant, and nobody should be commited to something all of their life that they did during their childhood or adolescence. LOL! I always LOVED when my kiddos wanted to do somethiing new to their hair, color or style. It was SO much easier to "undo" when they were tired of it and wanted a change. We have had some funky colors in our house as well as a mohawk or 2. Gotta LOVE the hot pink hair and bright electric blue mohawk!! :)

Would not be happening in my house!!!!

I am a hairstylist. It depends on what she wants to do. If she wants to go darker, let her do it but with a demi- or semi permanent color. If she wants some highlights, take her to the salon and let them put in just a few. Make sure she understands that it is a commitment to take care of so she doesn't have long, grown out roots, and that it also costs money. That is why subtle highlights, or even ombre hair is great with girls this age, b/c the upkeep isn't as time consuming or expensive.

Tell her when she is 18 she can shave her head if she wants to but for now....No...end of conversation...No.

I would say ..................NO!

Hi! What does she want to do? Can you experiment with temporary colors? Temporary hair color is better then lots of other things! Actually, permanent hair color is better than lots of things!!! My son's girlfriend has a nose piercing that make me cringe all the time but oddly her mother flipped over the blue streak in her hair- which is now long gone.

I would let her if she could pay for it herself, and pay for the necessary upkeep. Since she is thirteen she probably doesn't have the means to do this, and may change her mind when she actually finds out how much it will cost her.

As long as she is willing to pay for it & deal with any unforseen issues beacuse of it, then I don't see any reason not to. I just don't think hair, which can be fixed and/or grown out is that big of a deal.

I think if you fight things like this, then there's a high probability she might do it anyway, or up the ante.

What is your objection?

The way I see it (and I have a 12 year old) it's her hair. She lives with it. She pays for it. She takes care of it. She deals with the consequences (ie - stares, damage, etc).

My daughter generally gets to do her own thing, style-wise. However, she does know that the "mama-vote" can go into effect at any time. Also, I have say for anything "important" so if she is paying to dye her own hair pink, for example, and we are going to a wedding where she will be photographed SHE would be responsible for dying it back for that event.

I would let her do it - it's just hair and it will grow back. She is just trying to find herself and it's totally normal at that age. MY DD learned her lesson when we tried to put a purple streak in her hair. She didn't think it came out vibrant enough, so she did it again - on her own. It turned bright green! I had to laugh at that.

I draw the line at a belly piercing though. To me that's trashy.

My 16 yr old son started dying his hair ( unnatural colors) around 13. I figured he was a great kid, he helps so much around the house and with the other kids. He was doing great in school. So why not let him express himself with some non permanent hair color?

My opinion on the hair styles he has had ( from shaved to spiked to long to actually "nice" looking styles) and to the colors he has chosen ( even if I don't really like all of them) its only hair and its his hair.

Plus I would kinda be a hypocrite if I told him no when I put different bold colors in my own hair, not to mention for about 15 years I didn't even know what my own natural hair color really was... btw I figured out around 30, its dark brown ;)

He is only young once and I would rather he do it now and get it out of his system hopefully by the time he is 18 and gets out to the "real world".

It comes down to your own prefrences and what limits you want to allow for your child. Nobody its going to have the same answer and there is no right or wrong answer to what happens with your daughters hair compaired to the next person's daughters hair. This is something you have to decide on what is right with your own daughter and go from there.

Depends on what color and the circumstances. I would not pay for it to be done professionally but would help her and guide her in her decision. We kind of do the same for our son, he goes to get his hair cut and he describes what he wants. We would not let him get a mohawk but he can choose within reason if he wants to have longer hair, spikes, buzzed, you need to let your kids express themselves within boundaries.

My nephew dyed his hair for many years.(11-15yrs old) His hair was green in his Uncle's wedding pics and no one said a word. He is now a college graduate and in the Air Force.

For our daughter's 13th birthday she got a "new" look. New hair style and highlights. Really cute!!! My stylist did her hair. He was great. It was a very hip young look. She loved it!

She is now 24 and colors her hair. We have "winter" hair and "summer" hair. Winter is a brown/red color and summer is highlights. =)

I would allow it provided she is a good kid overall. I dyed my hair for the first time at 12 myself and didn't start to regularly dye it until my freshman year of high school.

So very late to the "party" on this one - I have NOT read any of the replies before posting this. Short answer HELL NO!

Longer answer, I would not allow my daughter to dye her hair until she is out of the house, able to pay for it on her own and handle the results. This decision can/will alter her hair for life. This can/will change the texture of her hair for better or worse, it WILL alter her color as it comes back in at the roots - typically darker. The amount of maintenance will be too much for a young girl of 13 to handle - plus what happens when/if it goes wrong the first time? Hair that has never been dyed before can be difficult to predict the results. The first time I dyed my hair we were supposed to add a touch of red, this is a big time hair dresser that works with soap stars (family friend), it turned orange. My naturally brown hair now had orange highlights and I had to wait until it could be completely corrected, all I wanted was a touch of red, but because my hair had never been dyed before the color did not take correctly.

i started using sun-in in my hair in 4th or 5th grade.. had full on bleachblonde highlights by the time i was in 7th grade.. i dont see a problem with it .. u just need to make sure she understands that once she dyes it unless she lets it grow out, she may not be able to get her origionall hair color perfectly if she ends up hating it.. id go with subtle highlights at first to see if she likes it.. not to scare you but my fiances little cousin has been asking to dye her hair purple since she was 12.. shell b 17 in a few months and her mother finally agreed (she has flaming red hair by the way) but the only condition was that she absolutley could not dye her whole head that she could only do the ends.. well her mom, who is not a hairstylist by any means did it for her and when i tell u it looks terrible i mean terrible, you can see the straight line across her hair where the dye starts and her origional color ends.. it looks like her mom put the dye in a bowl and took her hair and just dipped the bottom 3 inches in there.. and not only that but the color did not come out right over her red hair, its like a weird dakr purpleish color, not the bright purple that it showed on the box.. well she hates it, regrets doing it and has been washing it everysingle day to try to get it out .. so be careful what u do lol

My granddaughter is 8 and for her 8th birthday I put some blonde streaks in her hair. Not very noticeable just a light accent. I used a frosting cap with about 10-15 holes punched out. I barely pulled any hair through. She was so pleased. I have not done it since and will do it again for her 9th birthday.

I think it is a silly thing to argue over and I did talk to a hair dresser about it. She said it might damage her hair but it was not likely. She did say that the perm my granddaughter wanted would most likely damage her hair at this age so I vetoed that.

Hair styles or color is such an easy way for a child to have some independence and it not be permanent. It's not a tattoo or body piercing she's wanting.

So... I have seen kids (both boys and girls), younger than this with dyed or highlighted or bleached hair.

Your daughter is 13.
Does she mean to dye her whole head? Or just a few strands and highlight it? Or use bright colors? Permanent dye or temporary?
Hair grows out, dye fades out etc.

It can be tastefully done or really trendy looking.

Then, what if she does dye her hair and hates it or the way she looks with that color?
Then what?

Then, when the hair color starts to grow out, then what?
Will she want to keep it up?
That is very costly.... how is "she" going to pay for it?
I don't even dye my hair, because of the cost and upkeep of it.
And I'm an adult.

Unless it's something drastic or going to look un natural I would let her to it. I highlighted my son's hair cause he thought it would be cool. Granted no one could hardly tell. Next time I have to leave it in longer. Growing up I think I was in high school and put hydrogen peroxide on my bangs and my dad about beat me and I am not joking he thought it was the worlds wost thing I could have ever done. They were VERY controlling. Did not let me think for myself. If she wants it done professionally done I say have her earn the money to do it but if she's not do it for her.

Well, when my DD was 12 she started spending some of her own allowance money on drug store hair dyes. I did not allow her to get a bright pink or electric blue, but if it was a natural hair color, she was free to spend her own money on it.

Her experience was not great. They are messy and some of our white porcelain in the bathroom is still stained. DD has a lot of long, thick hair. Her own self-job often came out uneven. Then the root color started to bother her. Honestly, I thought it always looked just fine, and it would fade so to me I did not see any drastic issues. To her, the sublte issues, were big issues. She just kept buying more dyes to "fix" the previous jobs. Nothing satisfied her for very long.

Finally, she realized she could not afford to keep this up. She let the last box dye job fade out, and for her birthday before back to school, I took her to get professional blonde hightlights. She loves them, thank goodness. The hair stylist was able to talk her out of a bleach and all over permanent dye job because of the high maintenance cost she could not afford, and I was not willing to pay.

I would let her try a non-permanent or semi-permanent color. Hair color is fixable. I would not allow her to do something that would fry her hair, though. So no bleaching it down to white for a bright color as a first go.

Full disclosure, I dyed my hair black and red in late HS and blue/black/red in college. I eventually let it all grow out and now it's natural. I wouldn't let my DD dye her copper curls til she was older, but I think 13 is an OK age.

Nope. She is too young for that stuff. She has her whole life to do grown up stuff.

I would say start out with highlights. This way if she does not like the outcome, it is not as bad as your whole head. I do pink for breast cancer awareness. Only my bangs and it is the 3 time wash out stuff.

I guess it depends on how extreme she wants to go and how much you're willing to compromise. It also depends on who she wants to have do it. If she wants YOU to help her or have you take her to your salon, then I would probably take her and do something subtle-to-moderate but fun. Make it a mother-daughter day out.

As long as it's an acceptable color, I'd let her. She needs to have control over something; better her hair color than an eating disorder!

As long as it's nothing drastic, why is it such a big deal? You didn't say what color. But kids like to experiment around this age. She needs a little creative freedom and self expression. As long as it's not blue or pink or any other wierd color I don't see the harm. I wouldn't let her dye her whole head but maybe try some high lights. Then it can be dyed back easily.

My sister started dying her hair in her teens.
She stained everything in the bathroom (floor, walls, counter) as well as her hair.
If your daughter is going to do this, make SURE she knows it can ruin surfaces and then help her with it at least initially.
Also - hair will fry pretty quickly if she dyes it every month.
Split ends, breakage, the more she heats it, the more brittle it will become.
The young don't care so much - but it will catch up to her.
I used dye for awhile when I started going grey - I just didn't like how it left my hair.
Commercial hair dye has some pretty horrible chemicals in it.
Para-Phenylenediamine (PPD) can cause some nasty reactions - a sensitivity to it can build up.
http://www.hennaforhair.com/ppd/index.html

It will take longer but a safer alternative is henna.
She can't lighten her hair with henna, but she can achieve some pretty nice colors.
She can mix it up with lemon juice or vinegar.

http://www.hennaforhair.com/mixes/

I allowed my older dgtr to get highlights at 16, it does require upkeep but it really gave her hair color some depth that she needed.

It isn't permanent, hair grows and you can always correct color.

ETA: Both my girls did the "fun" KoolAid color featured on Pinterest this summer.....Major Warning...it DOESN'T come out and cannot be corrected!!!

Dye it a fun color - sure - but only semi permanent. Dye it a 'real' color - NO WAY - I would NOT want my daughter feeling she must change her appearance to have any worth. That would warrant quite a bit of further discussion.

This is the way I thought of this when my son, yes my son came to me and wanted to dye his hair blue. He had great grades in school, good kid, cleaned and helped around the house.
He wore all black, in drama, culanary, so at 13 I said go ahead. Its was really the only age he could get away with looking like he did. He had all sorts of hair colors.
Now he is 23 and do very well in life. Great self employed job. Lives on his own. Wears his hair sylish. I am happy I let him do what he wanted.

What do you mean dye her hair? A professional dye job of a normal color, or a teen dye job of a trendy color?

I guess it all depends on you and what you are comfortable with and what kind of background you support. Are you from an artistic background and you have a purple streak and daughter wants one too? Is it something you would be ok with? OR....is this something totally out of left field? I, support these decisions, with some compromise, if they can provide me 3 good reasons why they want to do it. And by good I mean...."well mom, I like the color and would like to explore it, especially 'cuz it's halloween"...."I'd like to try it for a week with wash out dye".......I'm curious and I'd like to see if it looks nice". Certainly not if they can't give you an answer or if the answer consists of "everybody has one"...."my BFF has it too". Sounds like you have a level headed girl as she already listed reasons why you should allow it. She planned and presented well. Compromise and give her the trust she's asking for (and be open to it or she may just do it herself). If not the entire hair, how about some streaks on the underpart of her hair or 1 big streak somewhere. Good luck and remember, it's hair, it grows out. It's dye and can wash out if you want to test it first.