The term redhead should be familiar to most of you, and it is often used for a person with intensely red hair. Red has always been a hair color that attracts a lot of attention, which is certainly because naturally red hair is rather rare. Worldwide, only 2 percent of people have red hair. In most cases, a redhead also comes with a fairly fair skin type and freckles.

redhead

How redheads come about

Red hair color is caused by a mutation of the MC1R protein. This protein regulates the amount of color pigment produced. The pigment melanin is responsible for the shade in which our hair grows. Melanin splits into two variants, eumelanin and pheomelanin. Depending on the proportions in which these two mix, a hair color results. An excess of pheomelanin results in blonde or red hair, while eumelanin in larger amounts forms brown and black hair.

In most cases eumelanin prevails, but in redheads eumelanin has no effect and the pigment pheomelanin prevails. A redhead is born, and with it comes a fairer skin type. One advantage of red hair is that the color pigments last longer and you go gray much later.

Redheads in history

There were redheads as far back as the time of the Neanderthals, which researchers have clearly been able to prove, and it is assumed that at least 1 percent of Neanderthals had red hair. Studies of Neanderthal DNA found the mutated MC1R gene. Most redheads live in Scotland, where almost 15 percent of the population has red hair. Scotland is followed by Wales and Ireland, where it is still 10 percent of the population.

A redhead generally has less hair than a brown- or blonde-haired person, about 90,000 hairs instead of up to 120,000. Research has shown that redheads experience pain differently and, when it comes to anesthesia, need 20 percent more anesthetic than all other hair types. In the past, redheads were called witches and warlocks, because back then red always stood for danger and the devil.

So a person with red hair can certainly claim to be something special...