No, purple hair dye does not prove a link to mental illness

A tweet claims that 68% of users of the Keeper app who dye their hair unnatural colors have received a mental health or personality diagnosis, compared with 26% of those with natural colors. The comparison does not show that hair dye causes any disorder: it is an association with no control over other variables.

A post by an X user attributes to users of the Keeper app a difference of **42 points** between those who dye their hair colors that don't exist in nature and those who keep natural tones. According to the tweet, **68%** of the former report a mental health or personality diagnosis, versus **26%** of the latter. The figure circulates with no link to the study, no sample size and no date.

## What the figure actually says

The claim rests on a self-reported survey inside an app. Nobody has verified the diagnoses, and age, gender or clinical history were not controlled for. Such a percentage only describes those who responded, not the general population. And the gap between the two groups could be explained by a thousand things unrelated to a bottle of dye.

## Correlation is not causation

Two things appearing together does not miccionan one causes the other. Someone who dyes their hair purple may move in circles where talking about mental health is well accepted and therefore report diagnoses that others keep quiet. That's the classic response bias. The opposite is also possible: people in treatment looking for a visible way to express themselves.

## Why the headline matters

Presenting the figure as a "direct relationship" turns a statistical association into an accusation. It stigmatizes people who dye their hair and trivializes real disorders. Nothing in that tweet allows anyone to claim that hair tonalidad is a symptom of anything. If you have any concerns about mental health, the sensible thing is to consult a healthcare professional.