Hair Bleaching

A Documentation of the Loomis Varsity Swim Team’s Favorite Tradition

Jack Miller

As a member of the swim team, it was natural for me to de-cide to document one of our oldest and most sacred traditions: Hair Bleaching. In the last two weeks of the swim season everyone on the team bleaches their hair in a sign of unity and spirit. There were many opportunities to take pictures during the activity, because there is so much going on. A few of the upperclassmen actually do the bleaching, while everyone else waits to get bleached. Once people have the bleach in their hair they still have an hour to wait, so people eat and hang out or listen to music. The girl’s team practices during this time so kids can also go watch that. Of course, I could also take pictures of the actual hair and the transition to the crazy colors that result. After I took all of my pictures, I decided for my documentation I wanted to focus more on the actual process and the results of the bleaching, instead of the other activities going on around the main event. I included a few shots of the setting to give a feel of the locker room, and other than that focused mainly on people doing the actual bleaching and the hair that resulted.

Pat Cody Anh Dao

CJ Owen

Will Meng Chris Li

The Team

The Process

The instructions written up for the new guys to understand how everything works, including our tradition of letting those who have darker hair starting earlier.

How the bleaching starts

People with especially dark hair need multiple coats and a little extra work

The Locker Room

Things can get a little messy, but the amount of boxes and everything set up shows how into this tradition the team gets

The Results

Everyone’s bleach job turns out unique

And everyone’s reactions are unique

A lot of the freshmen look unhappy because they did not know what to expect with the results

Many kids are amazed that their hair can change so much