Blonde. Blonde. Blonde. It’s all the rage. Some students can’t seem to get enough of bleached, damaged, and thin hair that is, you guessed it, blonde.

This is a direct result of a disconnect between what these students see in the mirror and what is truly there. To the world, their hair looks light and bleached, but in the mirror, they see dark stains and dull colors. This new epidemic has a name: blonde dysmorphia.

B-CC senior Claire Leadman has caught the fast-spreading disease. She shared, “It all started with Sun-In, and now I feel like I am getting my hair redone every month. It’s like an addiction that is killing my hair, but I can’t help it. I just want it to be blonder.”

On the other hand, junior Anna Antinolfi has managed to stay protected, but she has witnessed the infectious spread worsen. She shared, “Out of all my friends, I am the only one who wears their hair naturally. The rest are all fake blondes, and they are constantly asking if they need to go blonder. However, this is not a rare occurrence. It’s not only at B-CC…social media influencers everywhere are having the disconnect between what they think their hair looks like and what it looks like. It’s trending.”

The trend has even spread to B-CC staff, but one was able to quickly recover. Recently cured, Ms. Jones shared, “I used to be obsessed with going blonder, but now I want my hair to look more natural. Last time I went to the hair salon, I even instructed the hairdresser to go darker.”

The source of this disease is unclear. When asked about how she thought it came to be, junior Vittoria Bianchini shared, “I think it’s social media. If everyone does something, girls want to follow. That’s just how teenage girls function. They want to be in on the newest trends.”

Another junior, Ellie Watkins, also struggles with this problem. “I constantly wish I was blonder,” Watkins confessed. However, with the best interest of the B-CC community in mind, she admitted, “a certain level of blonde just isn’t cute anymore,” adding, “People need to find a good balance.”

This is a PSA: as you walk through the halls of B-CC, I urge you to be careful. You may never see it coming, but you may find yourself looking in the mirror, wanting to go blonder. Let this be a warning to you: blonder is not always better.

*Blonde dysmorphia: Persistent, intrusive thoughts that your hair is flawed because your natural hair color is not blonde. Blonde dysmorphia is a part of hair dysmorphia disorder (HDD).