Blue rinse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A blue rinse is a dilute hair dye used to reduce the yellowed (or translucent, showing scalp colour) appearance of greying hair on older women. The blue rinse supposedly makes yellow-white hair appear blue-white, but an inexpertly applied blue rinse will leave a distinctly unnatural tinge behind.
The phrase entered popular culture as a term for elderly women, the blue rinse brigade. An alternative term is "blue hair." It has declined in popularity with the increasing popularity of home dyeing, the reduced prevalence of smoking (which yellows the hair) and with society's more relaxed attitude to aging. It was caricatured as part of the character of Mrs Slocombe in the British sitcom Are You Being Served?
