Queer Sex Coven: How to Cast Spells with Your Hair Color, NBD

You’re already casting spells, and you don’t even know it. Sometimes magick involves a coven of witches invoking the elements in a ritual, and sometimes it’s just you and a messy red jar of Manic Panic. Our everyday rituals, such as getting our hair done, can be magickal as well. There’s nothing vain or petty about caring about a beauty ritual. Put more accurately: there is nothing wrong with being vain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a muggle who can’t be trusted. Dyeing your hair combines glamour magick and color magick to help you live your most powerful life.

What is glamour magick?

The word “glamour” originally referred to a magick spell. In particular, glamouring someone means to use your appearance to achieve the desired outcome. Glamour magick is the power of costume. Appearance can manipulate and set an intention. A power suit can invoke needed imagery to slay an interview, and eye makeup can seduce. Remember: Witches don’t feel guilty for using what they have to get what they want. Regarding hair color, glamour magick mixes with color magick to help you feel as powerful and happy as possible.

What is color magick?

Color magick is invoking the powers and associations of each color, as I outline for Allure. You can use color magick in your home, wardrobe, and even business marketing, but hair dye is one of the most fun ways to invoke the power of color.

When is the best time to cast this spell?

Astrologically, avoid significant changes to your appearance during Venus retrograde. Venus rules love and beauty, so a retrograde is not the time to try a new look. (Thankfully, there are no Venus retrogrades until May 2020). Friday is the day of Venus, as well as the first night of the weekend. It’s a lovely time to dye your hair.

Logistically, as those familiar with hair dye know, even the most powerful witches can’t go from natural dark hair to vampire red with a wave of the wand. Regardless of whether you go to the salon or dye at home, fun colors, especially pastels, wash out over several weeks. This makes it easier to change colors and get rid of one if you don’t like, but since hair dye doesn’t wholly remove itself, you can’t jump from one color to the next. The color wheel acts as a guide. You can turn a faded red into a bright purple since they’re next to each other on the color wheel. However, going from purple to green becomes more complicated. Unless your hair is naturally very light, you’ll need to have your hair bleached or highlighted first. It’s safest to go to a salon for this. Application of color hair dye over virgin hair can give blue highlights, but it won’t make your hair Katy Perry Blue. You must also use common sense and chemistry when deciding the best time to color your hair.

What deity should I work with?

Venus is the goddess of love and beauty and a go-to for all such spells. Venus loves abundance and wants you to have as much sex and wealth as you desire. Venus is the anecdote to your imposter syndrome. She reminds you that you are not only worthy, but you deserve the fruits of life that reflect your worth. I also tend to worth with personal style icons when changing my hair. I envisioned Ziggy Stardust before going orange, and Cheryl Blossom for long red femme hair. How do you work with a deity? You may set up an altar complete with offerings to the deity, such as fruit and roses for Venus. You can meditate on your inspiration, or keep it to a Pinterest board.

What does each hair color mean?

Each color comes with associations to invoke when dyeing your hair. Remember that glamour magick is not simply to allure others, but to feel confident. Choose colors that make you feel powerful or contain the energy you wish to harness. Consider the following associations when using color magick through hair dye, but ultimately stick with what you want. Colors come in many shades making it possible for everyone to enjoy each color.

Yellow: Joy, abundance, optimism
Orange: Originality, creativity, confidence
Red: Love, passion, sexual prowess
Pink: Flirtation, self-love, healing
Purple: Royalty, power, art
Blue: Tranquility, serenity, protection
Green: Wealth, healing, nature

Go forth and attack the world with magickal queer hair! Has changing your hair color affected your energy?

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Sophie Saint Thomas

Sophie Saint Thomas is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn and is originally from the U.S. Virgin Islands. High Times named her one of their “100 Women in High Places” for her writing on cannabis, and Brooklyn Magazine has named her one of their "30 Under 30's" in their annual Envy List. She has been published in GQ, Playboy, VICE, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, Allure, Glamour, Marie Claire, High Times, Nylon, Refinery29, Complex, Harper’s Bazaar, PRIDE Magazine, SELF, and more. She currently lives in Greenpoint with her two marmalade tabby cats, Mama Cat and Major Tom Cat. She has more than one David Bowie tattoo. Follow Sophie on Twitter.

Sophie has written 14 articles for us.

20 Comments

  1. I have always wanted purple hair and this post makes me want it even more, but also I’m about to be applying for a whole bunch of law internships so the rational part of me knows I shouldn’t cave to these desires. Just had to share that dilemma somewhere.

    • i can’t speak to the law internships but i recently dyed my hair purple after being a redhead most of my life, and can highly recommend it

    • I’ve had purple hair (with pink highlights) for about three years now and it’s amazing. I love it, it’s just part of my identity now…I feel like I’d look weird with my natural hair color again. The best part is when small children look at me like I’m some kind of faerie or magical unicorn 😁

      I do work in a creative field, though, where it seems like one out of every 16 people has fantasy colored hair. Might you try something more subtle? My sister got a strip dyed in the underside of her hair, so you can only see it when she pulls it up in a ponytail. There’s also a style in which you can only see the streaks when you brush or ruffle your hair, or just dyeing the bottom layer.

    • I’ve been sneaking in a little lavender tint to my silver hairs, and I work at an uptight hospital! So far everyone just thinks my hair is magic :)

    • 1. Depends on the law internship! I know someone who would rock pastel purple/silver for her work and everyone loved it; though it may be something you do after interviews and getting a sense of the place.

      2. I’ve currently got hot pink hair while studying for the bar, since no one can tell me not to. It’s my own little “hey, f**k your gatekeeping/respectability demands” to the NCBEX :)

      • Yep, absolutely not something I can do until I’ve done the clerkship, got the grad job and settled in! But a girl can dream right?
        Mad respect to you and your hot pink hair – sounds incredible!!

  2. A couple of weeks ago, with much resentful harumphing, I prepared for teacher training interviews by dying my pink hair brown (and got the shade wrong, to unheimlich effect). Now that I’ve been accepted—and chastised for my nose piercing?!!—I think it’s time to celebrate the remaining weeks of summer with a return to magickal queer glamour.

  3. Two years ago I went from toddler-mom hair to a purple and blue Mohawk. It really helped me figure out who I am, and it’s queer and hot af. At this point it’s grown out to about chin length, still shaved sides, more of a midnight blue with hints of purple. I developed a cool grey streak (thanks, toddler!) and insisted that we stop bleaching the silver streak. It’s so wonderful. It’s definitely part of my identity.

    • I had a beautiful dark purple hawk with black tips back in 2002, I let it fade out to greyish magenta, and it was always loverly

    • Oooh, I love silver! Yes, other people are paying lots of money for silver these days <3

      • I have big silver chunks on my temples. All it cost was decades of stress and having to explain to people that no, I couldn’t recommend them to my colorist.

        • LOL I had the same experience !

          I’ve had a white streak at my brow since the tender age of 21. It was amazing when I dyed my hair purplish-magenta because that streak would fade out faster than the rest of my hair.

          Then at one point my hairdresser decided to become a pastry chef so I let the colour go natural. And the amount of ladies then asking who was my colourist ! When I’d say “Mother Nature” they’d ask me for the address of that salon.

          I love how my hair colour has evolved over the years, and now that I go to a barber’s my grey-silver palette shows up even more, and it’s fantastic. Part of me wants to add purple again but I’m just so in love with the way my hair looks now I keep putting it off.

          • LOL Mother Nature Salon :D
            I’m seriously having a great time with the soft tint. In most light it just gives the grey a little depth and shine with more silvery highlights, and in strong light you can just pick up on the color. I got uh lessee Überliss Bond Sustainer in Lilac from Ulta on sale, and it’s super easy to use – I just rub it in on my grey, let it sit for an hour or so, then rinse it off. It doesn’t show up at all on my dark hairs and I don’t even need to wear gloves when I put it in. Since I”m not dousing my whole head the bottle is lasting forever. This is the first time I’ve put a color in my hair in 12 years, so maybe I’m a little over excited, but just getting a taste of purple back on my head feels great!

  4. Speaking of grey… Sophie, is there some magick to the grey-silver-white shade of hair, be it natural or applied ? Personally it makes me feel powerful, but that may just be because I’m a contrarian Aquarian.

    • I feel like it has some strong wise power vibes. I’ve been going grey since I was 12 (price of taking life too seriously), and I love it. When my hair’s not being tampered with, it’s got a very salt and pepper thing that makes me feel like a mighty badger.

  5. I’ve always dyed my hair on the weekends. Fridays specifically, and sometimes I’d do Sundays if I couldn’t do Fridays. It’s really crazy reading this as a Baby Witch- It always comes intuitively. It also makes me realize when I dyed my hair red (wasn’t allowed to bleach it then in high school before I turned 18 as a fair agreement I made with my mom respectively) I believe I was showing how angry I was at the time. Especially during the most vulnerable period of my life.

    So It could be a coincidence but maybe I’ve had this power all along. But I also just re-dyed my hair purple from what was a faded pink which was more a purple-pink and is now a darker hue towards my liking. Perhaps that explains my lack of confidence- while I do feel loved with pink as it was my favorite color as a child; it reflects pain for me. Lots and Lots of pain.

    Sorry, this is long, personal, and wordy. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve always expressed myself through color and now that I dye my hair fairly regularly I’m noticing the patterns it had during periods of my life that I’ve never noticed. I often doubt my witchy side, but I’m slowly learning to embrace it and This helps me as a Genderqueer Bisexual Person who’s been told what I’m not because of the basis of shallow traits I can’t help.

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