Talk:Hair color

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[edit] Color Change in Children

There is no explanation of the change in color that often occurs during puberty, especially to blonds. Children that have extremely light blond hair at age 10 can have dark blond or even dark brown hair by the time they're 14. I haven't added anything about this because I have no idea why it happens.

I don't have the energy right now to add anything to article, but this site [1] explains the phenomenon. --Jugbo 22:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Your right in the fact that when I was 10 I had white blond hair and eyebrows but by the time i was about 15-16 my hair was brown and eyebrows dark brown.I also have a wierd patch of white blond hair that never changed at the back of my hair.

[New poster] I vote to add this section to the main article. I was wondering, and I'm glad I thought to look under the Discussion section and found that link!

[edit] Question originally at top of page

May not be the best place to ask this but, I'm 18 years old and I've got a couple of white hairs on my head. No gray hair at all.. just 2 solitary strands of really white hair. What could explain that? 210.50.86.5 06:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you're still around, you might try a site called Understanding Genetics by using their Ask a Geneticist feature [2]. --Jugbo 22:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vast majority have black hair

The statement "The vast majority of people have brown hair of varying shades." is incorrect, given that Asia & Africa together constitute around 3/4s of the human population. Add to this vast numbers of black-haired denizens of Southern Europe and Central & South America, brown hair is clearly shown as a small minority.

-Ravenhead

I basically agree... AnonMoos 16:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't fully agree as to Southern Europe. Most Italians or Spanish people don't have "black" hair, but only a comparatively dark shade of brown hair. One clearly sees the difference when looking at the hair of a person from India or Japan. But I am well aware that the term "black" is relative!
212.227.103.74 19:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't really understand, I thought everyone knew the largest hair colour majority is brown? Most Indian, Oriental and Afro hair can be seen to be the darkest shade of brown when clear light is shone on it! I actually thought that people with TRULY black hair were reasonably rare (almost as rare as natural blondes ;D lol!). JJ
Most Africans have BROWN hair, truly BLACK hair is as rare as truly black EYES.

JJ or someone else says that most africans have brown hair... um... most africans have black hair.... and so do most of the world popluation.... and the reasoning of most indian oriental and afircan hair when light is shone on it is brown.... the only time when hair is truly black is when it is dyed... there is such thing as truly BLACK hair colour... you either have black hair or not...Australian Jezza 07:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


MOST Africans and Asians have DARK brown hair... if you wish to make a separate section for dark brown hair to supplement your point, perhaps that's best, but to continue to call the majority of the world's dark BROWN hair BLACK hair is ridiculous.

Africans have beautiful dark brunette hair that appears black, but actually is not. However the shades are dark but not always black. Southern Europeans, Indians, Arabians are also beautiful dark brunnette. Eastern Asians are the only people that have true black hair. Its blue-black when you look closely.
Read this: Eumelanin is black, and pheomelanin is red. All humans have pheomelanin in their hair. Bleach dark hair and it will be rud/orange. But it's still black otherwise. Hair is generally ugly, so you're wrong even more. -lysdexia 08:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I know for a fact that it is not redheaded Europeans, but dark-haired Africans that have the thickest hair.

    • You know correctly, whoever you are. :-)

_____

What is the evolutionary purpose for differences in hair color and texture?--65.1.80.92 14:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC) _____

Also, the supposed "facts" on the red haired portion is, on more accounts than not, incorrect. Naturally blonde hair may make up 1.7-2% of the world's population, but on the majority of websites, .org or .com, the percentage of the world's population that has red hair is 4%. This would make naturally blonde hair the rarest color in the world. Feel free to check this all for yourself.

[edit] albinism...

I think the part in albinism that says-"(Like the skin-tone that white people usually have)." should be removed. I myself am "white" and I don't know about any other people but my skin is definitely not pale pink. Everyone has pink lips and palms, but I have yet to meet anyone with pink skin. White people have a peach-ish color skin.-Liz 7/11/06

I do have to disagree. Many people we call "ginger" here in Britain have pale, pale skin with a flushed, pinkish complexion. Check out Bradley from Eastenders lol! JJ

[edit] Ellen Rocche has naturally blond hair

What is your source? - .Aiko 08:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

That first footnote that says nobody has naturally black hair..what? Clearly that is incorrect.

[edit] Emphasize Black hair

I think we need to emphasize how pretty much everyone has either black hair or dark borwn hair except for a few (namely white people). We need to clear that annoyingly ethnocentric concept of how hair color is so important. It's really a non-issue except for those few white people. White people aren't the centre of the world

Black hair is most common in the world and it is found in peoples of Asian, African, South Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Balkan and Pacific Islander heritage. It also forms a noticable element amongst the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and Highland Scots populations.
Blond hair is a relatively rare human phenotype, occurring in 1.7 to 2% of the world population with the majority of natural blondes in Scandinavia, England and other parts of Europe,
Red hair is by far the least common hair color in the United States and in the world;
The majority of people of European origin have brown hair of varying shades. It is found all over the world, mostly in Europe, and is sometimes seen in those of Mediterranean, Balkan, Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern descent.
How is this not enough emphasis? Each hair colour has its own article. This one even says most light haired people are of European descent. --Wafulz 03:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
wrong again.. DARK BROWN hair is what the majority of the world's population has, and dark BROWN hair is an altogether different hair color than BLACK hair.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.7.249.68 (talk • contribs).
Sources speak louder than words. --Wafulz 04:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
is that why the majority of the article calling black hair the majority isn't sourced? :-)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.7.249.68 (talk • contribs).
Nobody said you couldn't change it :-). Also, sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~)--Wafulz 05:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] British Isles

I'm intrigued by the following sentence about black hair:

"It also forms a noticable element amongst the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and Highland Scots populations."

and the following sentence about blond hair:

" but remains common amongst the English and Scots Lowlanders."

Not only are both statements unsourced, but it sounds suspiciously like the editor(s) is (are) pushing some sort of Celtic/Anglo-Saxon agenda. Having visited many parts of Britain (as well as living there), I know that such a division of hair colour does not exist to any notable extent. I would say the ratio of blond to dark-haired people in Britain is pretty similar. I'm removing this unless someone can prove otherwise. Pobbie Rarr 00:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Remove it, I think it is BS. As this also seems to be (about red) as well:
Many physical anthropologists (British Israeliest fantasist racists no doubt) now believe red hair was not an indigenous Celtic trait; rather, it was introduced into Ireland and Scotland via the Nordic invasions of Vikings, Normans (very few were actually Norman), and later by way of English Protestant planters(most of whom came from areas of Britonic ancestry, according to DNA samples done in the UK).
So the Roman observations of much red headedness in Scots was actually a prediction that their hair would be red some hundreds of years into the future?
Some idiots think there was nothing happening before history was written down as well. There was much connection between Ireland and Scandinavia in prehistory and most likely between Albion and Scandinavia as well. Given that there is a larger base for red hair among people of the British (Pretanic, Cruthni) Isles it is quite possible that Scandinavians got it from the early contacts.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.163.140.82 (talk • contribs).

The stuff re: red hair in this is utter nonesense and contradicts the much more accurate info in the seperate Wikipedia red hair entry. Red hair is at least twice as common in Ireland and Scotland as it is in England or Scandinavia according to stats I have seen. The Harvard study (author was Hooton) of the physical anthropology of the Irish (an academic statistical study of many thousands of residents of Ireland in the 1940s and 50s) is a vital text in this regard and it put about 10% of the Irish with red or reddish hair. It also noted that red hair was much more common among the Catholic Irish than the Protestant or Presbyterian Irish. It was among the Irish Catholics of the NW of Ireland (maximum in Co. Fermanagh)that the greatest frequency of red hair was found in the study while in the east of Ireland (where most later settlers such as Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Irish and lowland Scots settled), it is considerably more rare. NW Ireland is as far from the Irish Viking areas as you can get and the study found considerably less red hair, fair freckled skin etc in the eastern half of Ireland than the west, contrary to popular myth. The whole thesis of red hair being introduced to Ireland by Vikings or by later British settlers etc is therefore total nonesense that is totally contradicted by the findings of the Harvard survey. The Romans never visited Ireland but they (Tacitus) stated that the inhabitants of genetically (largely AMH haplotype population) similar northern Scotland (Caledonia) were characterised by reddish hair and large limbs in the 1st or 2nd century AD, over 6 centuries before the Vikings arrived in the British Isles and 2 or 3 centuries before any Anglo-Saxon settlers arrived either. So, everything points to the Vikings or other settlers having nothing to do with red hair in Ireland or Scotland. The most likely explanation for its modern distribution is that it was brought to the British Isles by the very earliest (Mesolithic) settlers to Ireland and Scotland who were probably a predominantly fair skinned, light eyed, brown haired population with a notable red haired minority (as today in Ireland and Scotland). The red hair only remained common where this early population was relatively undiluted by later settlers in the most isolated of places like NW Ireland and northern Scotland. The stuff about Vikings and red hair is an old wives tale similar to the stuff about the Armada leaving dark people on the west coast of Ireland and has no place in Wikipidea. It is also worth saying that nobody who has actually travelled Ireland, Scotland, England and Europe including Scandinavia would be in any doubt that the red haired, ultra pale/ freckled skin phenotype is overwhelmingly a British Isles one(particularly Scotland and Ireland). Today, Gemanic and Baltic Europe has far more blondes, often with skin types that much more readily produce a deep golden tan. The Irish Harvard Survey (Hooton) evidence is vital and Wikipedia should consult that source. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Occam's razor blades (talk • contribs).By Jove, paragraphs please! :-) --Wafulz 02:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hair color and eye color linkage

The article says that red hair is genetically linked with light eye color. But most of the natural redheads that I know have brown eyes, why many people say that red hair and brown eyes are so uncommon?? But blond hair and brown eyes i think is impossible, only in childs. I have never seen an adult with natural blond hair with brown eyes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lithop (talk • contribs) 03:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Gray hair

An IP posted this in the article:

"earlier in this article it is said that grey color of hair is due to death of stem cells but can a cancer drug rejuvinate a dead cell.so the the stem cell death may not be the cause of grey hair.i think it may be due to switch offing dna in tune with biological timer inside cell."—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.93.7.87 (talk • contribs). --Wafulz 17:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy of Frost's hair color map

Aren't there any other hair color distribution maps? I find some parts of this map from Peter Frost unrealitsic. For example i find it difficult to believe that most of Britain is blonder than northern Germany. What do yout hink, is it correct? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Common (talk • contribs) 20:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC).

The map says that there are more people with "light" hair in Britain than in Germany, not blond(e). Light hair presumably includes light brown and red hair. Germany may well have a larger proportion with very blond(e) hair, but may also have more people with dark hair. LeighvsOptimvsMaximvs 18:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discrimination?

If for example, anti-semitism is discrimination against someone who is Jewish, and racism is discrimination against someone belonging to a particular race, is there a name for discrimination (eg. name calling) against someone based on the color of their hair? Does such a term exist? JohnathanZX4 20:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think "stereotyping" is the best word available for that, though I don't think anyone's ever been discriminated against because of hair colour (aside from professional jobs that don't like blue-haired mohawks). --Wafulz
I disagree. What about the whole "dumb-blonde" thing, or "gingers"? JohnathanZX4 23:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm arguing that people aren't really hurt in a manner that violates their human rights, which is more of what "discrimination" means in this sense. What you've mentioned are still just stereotypes more than anything else. --Wafulz 03:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hair dye

i am tring to find how to dye ur hair and see which hair dyr you fade faster and which obe to get so that i know what i shoulkd get \ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.34.120.31 (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] No. of strands

Brunettes, blonds, and redheads are all listed as having 100 000 strands--but for blonds it says the number of strands is the highest and for red the lowest. AndperseAndy 00:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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