Analysis: Illinois has most blue-haired state lawmakers in the U.S.

Illinois has two state lawmakers who have dyed their hair blue—more than any other state.

That’s according to an analysis of state lawmaker hairstyles by Prairie State Wire.

Illinois State Reps. Kelly Cassidy (D-Rogers Park) and Eva-Dina Delgado (D-Belmont Cragin), both of whom represent districts on Chicago’s North Side, dyed their hair blue for official state photos.

Cassidy has what might be described as vivid cobalt or electric blue highlights in her black hair.

Delgado wears a long, straight mullet-style haircut and dyes the bottom of her black hair teal-turquoise blue green.

Both Cassidy and Delgado occasionally dye their hair purple, as well.

There are no lawmakers with dyed blue or purple hair in any Midwestern state, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Iowa or Nebraska. 

A review of photos of all state lawmakers in the deepest-blue states: California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts also found no blue or purple-haired legislators.

Hawaii has one purple-haired state legislator, Representative Elle Cochran (D-West Maui).

In the history of democracy, Cassidy and Delgado are the first elected officials on record to dye their hair blue since English member of Parliament Charles James Fox (1749-1806), who did it to emphasize a policy position.

Fox lightly tinted his hair with blue powder, starting in 1782, “in a supposed emulation of George Washington’s regiment, likely to demonstrate… opposition to the American Revolutionary War,” according to “Casting Off Powder: The Death of the Powdered Wig and Birth of British Sartorial Modernity, 1795-1812,” by Samuel Marknas.

Neither Cassidy nor Delgado has publicly stated that their blue (or purple)-dyed hairstyles are intended to be a political statement.

Dyeing one’s hair blue is “fashionable,” according to L’Oréal-owned Hair.com, which counted “nearly 700,000 posts dedicated to the hue” on TikTok, describing blue hair as “versatile” and “captivating.”

“Plagued by worry and doubt”

While celebrated by hair dye makers as a means of celebrating one’s individuality, a 2022 research report found that it correlates with “mental instability.”

In “Blue Hair and the Blues: Dying Your Hair Unnatural Colours is Associated with Depression,” authors Edward Dutton and Emil Kirkegaard studied 68,000 OKCupid dating site profiles.

“People who at some point had unnatural coloured hair…are high in mental instability,” they wrote. 

“We would submit that the simplest explanation for this relationship can be garnered from the known relationship between borderline personality disorder and extreme, though changeable, expressions of identity,” the report said. “Those who score high in neuroticism are plagued by worry and doubt, including about themselves and even about who they are.”

Dutton and Kirkegaard said subjects dye their hair unnatural colors as a coping mechanism.

“Being high in neuroticism strongly correlates with suffering from depression and anxiety. The world appears to them as a frightening place, beyond their control, meaning that even their sense of ‘self’ can be unclear,” the report said. “In periods of extreme concern, they deal with this by creating- and expressing- a clear and strong identity, which ameliorates their negative feelings, at least for a period of time.”

The report theorized that blue and purple hair might also serve as a mechanism to repel people with differing views from attempting to engage with them.

“Such hair might be a means of scaring or at least confusing potential threats, thus persuading them to ‘stay away’… strikingly contrasting patterns displayed by poisonous insects or amphibians,” the report said. “These so-called ‘aposematic signals’ have evolved as honesty indicators that the prey is toxic and dangerous and should be avoided.”