The blonds are back and having more fun than ever before. During the World Baseball Classic, Puerto Rico broke the Guinness World record for the most hair dyed, with 192 men going blond to support the U.S. territory’s team during the tournament.
Back in 2017, the team’s players first dyed their hair blond before the tournament as a joke but it unexpectedly unleashed a dyeing craze in Puerto Rico that left pharmacies and beauty supply stores sold out of hair dye.
The World Baseball Classic is usually held every four years but because of the pandemic, it was delayed an extra two. After six years of dye-less hair, the players repeated the tradition and many Puerto Ricans responded with platinum blond, dirty blond and even burnt orange locks and beards to show their support.
“The more blond hair, the more united we’ll be as a people,” photographer Miguel Rodríguez Camilo said. He was one of more than 200 men that attended the mass bleaching event held on March 10, 2023. Some people were disqualified from the record-breaking attempt for various reasons, including that they didn’t take a “before” picture of themselves to confirm the transformation.
Participants at the event sat in an outdoor area for up to 45 minutes wearing plastic shower caps as they waited for their hair to be dyed. “I wasn’t going to do it but my colleagues pressured me into it,” said William Davidowski, a 51-year-old with naturally dark brown hair.
Organizers of the event had eight hours to beat the previous record, set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in March 2013 when 160 people dyed their hair. More than five hours after the event began, participant number 161, the man responsible for breaking the record, walked into the applause and cheers of those gathered.
Whether all the blond power will translate into a tournament win is yet to be seen.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/puerto-rico-blond-world-record-baseball-32f4879d06aa8be56126596cae46c51f