Shaping Your Identity Through Your Hair

Dr. Emma Beckett with colored hair extensions

Shaping Your Identity Through Your Hair

Hair and Identity

We often think of the clothing that we wear as a symbol of our personality, but our hair is just as powerful of a mechanism. Throughout history, women have manipulated their hair to showcase their femininity, identity, liberation, and more. Even today, we tend to associate a “bad hair day” with a day where nothing goes right, simply because how our hair looks and how we feel about ourselves are so closely linked.

That’s why we love when we come across individuals who use their hair to empower themselves and express their uniqueness. It’s not every day that this happens, which made finding Dr. Emma Beckett on Instagram such a fun surprise.

 

 

Hair Identity Inspiration: Dr. Emma Beckett

Dr. Emma Beckett is a molecular nutritionist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Newcastle in Australia, but don’t let that give you the wrong impression: Far from having the hair that you probably just imagined, Emma consistently rocks highlights in a variety of vibrant colors. This has become such a staple of her style that it’s something people recognize her by and — as someone recently remarked to her — has become part of her personal “brand.”

 

 

Emma’s Hair Identity

Part of the reason that Emma’s colors are so important to her is that they allow her to set herself apart from her identical twin. “My sister keeps her hair dark, long, and simple,” Emma explains, “so the colours are an awesome way to tell us apart easily.” On a more personal level, Emma sees her highlights as a means of expressing her personality and individuality.

This expression entails not only choosing bold colors to liven up her look, but also updating those colors on a regular basis: “[M]y hair story is really about the fact that while I always have colour, I am always changing the colours up!”

 

 

Emma also loves that her colors allow her to get away with easy hairdos, which is especially important when she’s working in the lab. Although she claims that she needs this simplicity because she’s not great at styling her own hair, we can’t help but disagree!

How She Does It

Most people outside of the hair industry don’t realize it, but Emma’s colors aren’t actually highlights. Instead, they’re extensions that she has glued to her natural hair. “The extensions make it easy to put bright colours in my dark hair, and let me change the colours easily every six weeks,” she confides. Emma buys the extensions in a blonde color, dyes them herself, and then brings them to a professional to bond them to her hair before her routine cut.

 

 

Your Own Brand

Whether you have never considered what your hair says about you or you are just looking to change things up, now is a great time to shape your own hair identity. For more inspiration, follow Emma on Instagram and Twitter and check out our blog. And if you can’t achieve the hair you want on your own, schedule an appointment with us today!

 

Dr. Emma Beckett with colored hair extensions