# No blue or green hair

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-blue-or-green-hair/522810>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [December 28, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-blue-or-green-hair/522810 "2009-12-28T17:12:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-blue-or-green-hair/522810/1 "2009-12-28T17:12:12Z")

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> **[Why aren’t green or blue naturally occurring human hair colors? What’s Kwanzaa?](https://www.straightdope.com/21343512/why-aren-t-green-or-blue-naturally-occurring-human-hair-colors-what-s-kwanzaa)**

It’s worth noting that not only have humans never evolved green or blue hair, neither has any other mammal (at least that lives today). Green especially seems like it would be a great camouflage in some environments (green snakes would agree), so I wonder if there is something about hair that doesn’t ‘hold’ green or blue pigment well?

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**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-blue-or-green-hair/522810/2 "2009-12-28T22:55:55Z")

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I suspect this thread will be merged, but I’ll respond here anyway.

Hair colors black through the lightest blond can be provided by varying the amount of melanin - that’s 1 pigment only. Red seems to come from some other mutation.

For hair to be able to be green or blue, it would likely require a significant mutation to provide an alternate pigment. As the column said, maybe that would require more than one mutation to work in conjunction, so is unlikely.