Susan Olsen, best known for playing Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch, recently shared the challenges she faced maintaining her iconic blond hair. The 63-year-old actress spoke about the intense hair and makeup routine during the show’s run.
At a panel event at The Chocolate Expo at Hofstra University in New York, Olsen joined three former Brady Bunch co-stars. When a fan asked if she used bleach or dye to keep her hair blond, she replied, “You bet. Every three weeks, they had to dye my hair.” She added that by the third season, her hair color varied from episode to episode due to constant dyeing.
Olsen explained that all the chemicals caused her hair to fall out when she was just 8 years old. “They were trying out different things, but then my hair had started to fall out,” she said. After that, she returned to letting her mother do her hair every Friday night.
The damage was so severe that her hair straightened permanently. To recreate Cindy’s signature ringlet curls, Olsen had to sleep with rollers in her hair, as it would not hold a curl otherwise. “My mother was responsible for those ringlets,” she recalled.
Her co-star Mike Lookinland added that in 1970, hair treatments involved “a whole cocktail of weird chemicals,” a sentiment Olsen agreed with. Thankfully, she noted, going blond in 2025 is much less stressful.
