Only 2 per cent of the world’s population are naturally redheaded—me being one of those lucky people.
Only 2 per cent of the world’s population are naturally redheaded—me being one of those lucky people. Geneticists believe that we may start to see that number fall due to climate change. The fiery redhead gene is believed to have come from and evolved from the lack of sunlight and vitamin D in Scotland, Ireland and the north of England thousands of years ago.
With more sunlight and higher temperatures, the redhead gene may start to fade away.
Red hair is not only seen as the strangest, hottest, most vivid and unique hair colour but it is soon to be the most exclusive and rare too seeing as though the number of natural red heads is decreasing.
Though we tend to see more red heads these days compared to when I was child, many people are actually dying their hair a sort of ginger colour, though no matter how hard they try it will never be a true replicate of a natural red head.
If I received a pound every time someone asked me “is your hair naturally that colour?” I would be very rich. It’s a rarity being ginger, though because of the fiery locks and pale complexion, it also means that unfortunately I, amongst other fellow redheads, are prone to the sun.
It’s basically our worst enemy. I can’t leave the house without being covered in factor 50 sun cream from head to toe, even if it’s only 20 degrees outside. It was a nightmare when I was younger – my parents would lather me in it as a safety precaution literally every day the sun wasn’t covered by clouds.
I went to Australia for 3 weeks when I was 12/13 years old. Imagine how many bottles of sun cream we went through—yeah, it was a lot.
We all know where is a stigma that comes along with being a natural ginger – stereotypically, redheads have a temper as fiery as their hair, and apparently they’re just a little bit weird.
Pros
Ah, the pros of being a redhead. Firstly, when I was younger I always thought that there was nothing positive about having red hair. I did get bullied a lot in primary school because of it (just like many gingers) so my opinion of my own hair colour changed for the worst.
As I’ve grown older, I have fallen in love with my auburn hair. It makes me different. I stand out in the crowd, always. There are so many different shades of red hair – it can go from fiery orange to deep auburn. No two gingers are exactly the same.
I find that pretty fascinating. And even though a number of people dislike ginger hair because it’s different, and attempt to insult us by shouting ‘you’re ginger!’ (nice observation skills), quite a lot of people admire and appreciate the bronze hair and compliments are always given.
Cons
Scientific cons of being a red head however are things such as the fact we are more likely to get stung by wasps or bees due to our vivid hair colour and bright white complexion and because of the very pale skin it leads to an extremely higher chance of sunburn.
Ginger jokes. Gingerism. Gingerphobia; sadly, this is a real thing though not as common as it used to be. I know for a fact, every single person that is naturally red headed will have received some sort of hair related insult towards them in their life.
Gingers are usually depicted as ‘soul capturing’ and ‘ugly.’ Just like blondes are portrayed as ‘bimbos and dumb’ and brunettes are seen as ‘boring.’ What a world we live in, associating negative attributes to people according to their hair colour.
Being ‘different’ in society, whether it is having a different hair colour, skin colour, religion, sexuality, etc, it will always result in some kind of judgement and/or discrimination. It’s wrong.
But will it ever change? Most probably not.
What do you think? Have your say in the comments section below.
