When it comes to hair, hues like blue, pink, and purple are often described as ‘not-found-in-nature colors’. But while it’s certainly true that those hair colors are not natural, the hues are most certainly found in nature.
Ursula Goff has found online fame for her incredible colorful hair pictures. The Kansas-based colorist is known for eschewing blonde and brunette tones in favor of pastels and technicolor looks, which have earned her lots of clients and nearly 100,000 Instagram followers.
One of her most recent color series sees Ursula pulling inspiration from nature, dying hair to look like autumn trees, flowers, gemstones, and even animals.
Gorgeous! Colorist Ursula Goff is known for the colorful hair dye looks she does for clients (including this one inspired by a Yellowstone hot spring
Seasonal strands: She pulls inspiration from everywhere, and recently spotlighted a series of hair inspired by nature
Ursula, who is from Kansas, said her clients give her a lot of creative control
They might tell her a general color scheme they want, and she will pull pictures for inspiration
She’s done several looks inspired by gemstones and glittery rocks
It’s not usually that one of Ursula’s clients comes in and says, ‘Make my hair look like Yellowstone National Park.’ More often, it’s that Ursula sees an image on her own and banks it for the future, and her clients let her do what she wants.
‘My clients give me a lot of creative control,’ she told Cosmopoltian.com. ‘I see things all the time that I’d love to do, so I set [inspiration pictures] aside until I have a good opportunity to utilize them.’
She’s done a lot of different looks this way, including hair inspired by famous paintings or locks dyed with various multicolor designs. She’s also been inspired by nature, using the colors and shapes to influence the hair she dyes.
Last week, she shared a compilation of some of these nature-inspired looks, much to the delight of her followers.
The stylist (pictured) also experiments on her own hair with lots of colors
This blue, purple, and green-striped hair was inspired by a peacock’s feather
Her oil spill hair look was a particular favorite of her followers
This mother-of-pearl-inspired look is a much more muted creation
She was inspired to do this rainbow hair after a scene she saw through her airplane window
One client’s hair was made to look like the famous hot springs of Yellowstone. Another’s looks like the feathers of a peacock, and a third looks like a snapshot of a galaxy in space.
‘With the hot springs hair, [my client] told me she definitely wanted gold this time with maybe some blues or purples,’ the colorist said. ‘So, I dug up probably about 15 inspiration photos to work from and we collaborated until we found a concept she really loved. We were thrilled with how striking the outcome was.’
Some looks have been inspired by gemstones, a rainbow seen through a rain-streaking window, and lava.
‘This [rainbow] look developed from an idea I got while flying home from a trip — as I watched the sunset over the clouds from my window seat, I began formulating an idea that consisted of smoky-colored clouds combined with brighter sunset shades. I actually took photos and sent them to [my client] as soon as my plane landed.’
This blue and blonde look was inspired by a labradorite stone
This look has the same color palette as the Horsehead Nebula
She posted this compilation of nature-inspired hair last week
Ursula has earned widespread internet attention in the past for some of her other incredible hair dye creations.
Though many of the looks featured on her Instagram page are simply colorful and pretty, she occasionally takes up a theme, too.
Last year, a collection of hair art inspired by actual works of art caught the collective eye of the internet, as admirers oohed and ahhed over locks dyed to look like famous paintings.
A talented hair stylist has created her very own take on fine art – dyeing her locks in the same array of colours as those used in famous masterpieces.
She payed homage to paintings by by Van Gogh, Munch, Monet, and Warhol, posting side-by-side comparisons of the incredible work she’d done.
Last year, her series of hair inspired by famous paintings (including this interpretation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night) went viral
Her interpretation of Edvard Much’s 1893 painting The Scream featured vivid oranges and purples
She dyed her own hair to look like Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss
She also reimagined Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (left), and Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (right)
Dyed hair made inspired by pieces like Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Edvard Much’s 1893 painting The Scream can take anywhere between three and six hours to create — although more elaborate styles can take up to 10 hours.
‘It only recently occurred to me to start pairing some of the hair I have done with the art work that is always floating around in my head, often influencing the palettes, and sometimes, the textures of the hair I do,’ she wrote in a blog post earlier this year.
In December, the stylist shared the first piece of work from her Fine Art Series, a recreation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night on client Airacha Scott.
‘I have actually been surprised at how much positive feedback I’ve gotten with them — the Van Gogh in particular has had a huge response. It’s almost always about the color, as I’ve always just been terribly responsive to color,’ she said.
Pop art: Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe made for a bright hair look
In another pop art-inspired post, she paid homage to Roy Lichtenstein’s bright prints
Her tribue to Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli took inspiration from The Birth of Venus
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Red Canna Lily used vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows
‘Sometimes I just see a certain color on a piece, or a specific combination of colors, and want to do that on someone,’ she went on.
‘Other times, the clients themselves have color themes in mind, and I will often mentally reference where I’ve seen similar color themes — typically in art — until I settle on one that looks or ‘feels’ right to proceed with.
‘I would say for the bulk of my career doing hair over the last 14 years, I have been influenced and inspired by other artists’ palettes, among other things. But it was only last month that it occurred to me to pair the inspiration with the outcome in a side-by-side photo format.’