What Is With… coloured hair’s reputation for unprofessionalism in 2026?

SINGAPORE – Sometimes, it feels like anything you do or say on the MRT will be held against you. Uncivic behaviour, seat-hogging, spitting or rows with other passengers are frequently documented online. Even innocents can activate the citizen paparazzi. 

In mid-July, two Gen Z women were photographed on a train and ridiculed on Facebook for their brightly coloured hair. 

“This kind of funky monkey hair colour won’t lead you anywhere for your career in Singapore. You go for interview, every company see liao will not even hire you,” user Caybiru wrote in Complaint Singapore – a Facebook group with several spin-offs dedicated to airing petty grievances. 

Then this injunction: “Be decent and presentable.”

The pink- and green-haired duo hit back with a video tour of the thrift store they own in Orchard Road, Fairies Aisle. Their rice bowls are safe, thank you very much, and the criticism was so silly, they framed a picture of the since-deleted post for laughs. 

That “revenge” reel has been viewed more than three million times and set this writer thinking – first, about banal generational differences, and second, the lack of logic of coloured hair taboos in the workplace. 

The two issues are most likely linked. 

Michelle Koh, managing director of white-collar recruitment firm The Edge Partnership, says: “The people setting dress-code policy are still human resources heads, senior partners and managing directors, and they were trained in an era when a clean-cut look was simply what professionalism looked like. 

“Once a norm like that gets written into a staff handbook, it tends to persist by default rather than by active decision.” 

Flaming hair colour feels like the last enemy of reasonable self-expression in a post-pandemic era of relaxed office dress codes.

Even rule-bound Japanese salarymen are trotting to work in shorts under encouragement from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The recommendation was prompted by the heatwave there, but has made leg-baring for men more socially acceptable. 

Signalling non-conformity

I would wager that some of the resistance to hued manes comes from the signifying power of hair. People care a lot about their mops because they communicate so much about the personalities wearing them and, unlike clothes, are semi-permanent. 

The first Roman emperor, Augustus, modelled his do after Alexander the Great’s thick and curly tresses. Emperors who followed copied Augustus’ brushed waves as a visual marker of continuity that also telegraphed power, scholars say. Canadian singer Justin Bieber was bullied for his eye-poking sweep of a fringe in the 2010s because it seemed childish and girlishly long. 

Regency men cast off powdered wigs and, in doing so, rejected the values of the generation before.

When I quit my job as a lawyer and started writing, I bleached my hair a honking orange to usher in a creative rebirth of sorts. 

So all hair says something. Coloured hair might just be a louder statement. Sometimes, it signals an artistic streak; at other times, rebelliousness or progressiveness. At the very least, it proves a willingness to turn some people off – to not be attractive to everybody. 

This last trait, which some may call the essence of “alternativeness”, is uniquely ill-suited for a corporate environment where getting as many people on your side as possible is often the playbook for getting ahead. 

But unless peroxide can fry the brain, no hair colour can damage one’s intelligence or induce laziness. In fact, workaholic creatives with high-visibility locks are commonplace. 

Some of the resistance to fun colours also lies in the so-called positive associations of neutral hair. Koh says that conservative, natural colours are what corporates associate with competence and seriousness.

That hair remains the sticking point in a dramatically more casual world is unfair, then, but not arbitrary. It is a woeful matter in a world still hitched to faulty stereotypes. 

However, there have been small shifts in attitude. Says Koh: “In tech, media, creative agencies and start-ups, a streak of colour or fully dyed hair barely raises an eyebrow now.”

David Leong, managing director of PeopleWorldwide Consulting, cites advertising, gaming, fashion, design and some technology roles where an “unconventional appearance” may even be a boost, seen as a badge of creativity. 

But these are exceptions that prove the rule. Leong says: “Bright, unnatural hair colours such as neon green, electric blue or platinum blonde on Asians are still viewed cautiously by many employers and, in fact, are deeply shocking – particularly in client-facing, leadership and regulated industries.”

He adds: “The practical question for job seekers is not, ‘Can I express myself?’, but rather, ‘Will this presentation strengthen or weaken my chances in the particular workplace I hope to join?’”

I know the feeling. Months after I went ginger – and not cheaply – I reverted to a gormless chocolate brown to prepare for a job interview. 

I got the job, but I never found the guts to bleach my hair again. May future generations be spared this minor indignity.