bottle blonde
- noun
- Informal
- It's common for people to confuse her with a natural blonde, but she is actually a bottle blonde.
Examples
-
I can't stand a bottle blonde.
-
Of course, there are stupid chicks who will occasionally fall for some "strategies," just as there are stupid guys who will go for fake breasts and bottle blondes.
Blog text (31) -
Are you a bottle blonde, or is that just naturally stupid?
-
That bottle blonde.
-
She is often referred to as a bottle blonde because she dyes her hair a light shade of blonde.
-
After bleaching her hair last summer, she proudly embraced her new identity as a bottle blonde.
Synonyms
A person, often a woman, whose hair is bleached very light blonde
A person who makes their hair very light by bleaching it with peroxide
Surface Forms
Morphology
bottle + blonde
The adjective 'blonde' is clear, and 'bottle' can plausibly signal something produced from a commercial product (i.e., hair dyed from a bottle), so a learner could infer the notion of non‑natural/artificial blondness. However, this interpretation relies on cultural knowledge and a metaphorical link (’blonde from a bottle’) rather than a fully regular compositional pattern, so the meaning is not immediately predictable for all B1 learners without exposure.
Etymology
Bottle blonde comes from people using hair dye or bleach sold in a bottle to make their hair blonde. Because the color comes from a 'bottle' rather than from natural hair, the phrase means 'a person whose hair is dyed blonde rather than naturally blonde'.