Okay, crazy theory/headcanon that doesn't have that much evidence to it but
What if it has to do with age?
Callie, Marie, Pearl and Marina are implied to be older than our player character (somewhere in their 20s), and I don't know how old the members of Deep cut are, but I headcanon them as older than neo 3 and younger than the squid sisters (18 to 21).
So what if inkling and octoling hair colors become more natural overtime, slowly fading from their original ink colors to the natural hair colors we see with the first two idols before they dry out like how Cuttlefish so kindly demonstrated for us.
And then it would be funny if they could be revived by their fellow cephalopods' tears like with what Cap'n 3 did.
And they can no longer transform into their humanoid form lol.
I just noticed you can even see starting to happen with Shiver's hair.
Am I the only one confused by this?