1986 — Daniel Woodrell, Under the Bright Lights, in The Bayou Trilogy, Mulholland Books (2011), →ISBN, page 78:
"Blond, huh?" said one of the less grayed men. "Blond. My friend Terry is blond. Sort of dishwater blond. I like him, he likes me. But he lives in Memphis, you know. That's not here."
Robyn hated that term — dishwater blond. Even worse than dirty blond. She preferred dark blond. But for this girl, Robyn hated to admit, dishwater blond was most accurate.
Where Martin was dark, angular, addicted to three-piece suits, and possessed of a temperament to match, Dan was a dishwater blond, wore ties only when he had to make a court appearance, and was dignified only as a last resort.
1987 — Kenneth Lincoln & Al Logan Slagle, The Good Red Road: Passages into Native America, University of Nebraska Press (1997), →ISBN, page 60:
Kate was a dishwater blond with a snappy kind of plainness — her complexion was fair but weathered.
2003 — David M. Pierce, Elf Child, The Hatworth Press (2003), →ISBN, page 1:
Russ tipped the magazine slightly to reduce the glare from the lamp. The dishwater blond in the picture smiled at him, Russ thought, in just the right way.
2005 — Carla Thompson, Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama, August Press (2005), →ISBN, page 147:
Tammy was a dishwater blond, a color too fair for her complexion and clearly applied by untrained or poorly trained hands.
Her husband came up behind her as she invited Virgil in: he was a dishwater blond, slender, althletic, and pretty, wearing a blue shirt that vibrated with his blue eyes, and khaki surfer shorts and sandals.
Adjective: "of a dark blond colour/color bordering on light brown"