# Red Hair **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2003, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461 "2003-03-27T04:41:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![summerbreeze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@summerbreeze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/summerbreeze)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/21 "2003-03-28T13:23:01Z")
Mentioned that my generation’s red hair comes from our Italian great-grandmother (think Titian’s redheads). We have olive skin, hazel eyes, no freckles. In mid-summer my skin & hair are the same color. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/22 "2003-03-28T14:32:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\*Not mine. I’ll be 43 this year and my hair is still bright red, almost orange. Not a speck of grey either. Except in my beard. I have grey starting to pepper my otherwise fire engine whiskers (I’m Red Beard the Pirate donchaknow:p ) \*\* I did say “some red heads’” hair turns brownish. And besides, 43 is still pretty young, give it another 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![Rusalka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecd19e/32.png) [@Rusalka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rusalka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/23 "2003-03-28T14:57:34Z")
I have never seen a true european redhead without freckles. If your hair bleaches to red in the summer, or is redder at the ends, that doesn’t count as being a redhead. ---
**Author:** ![mipiace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mipiace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipiace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/24 "2003-03-28T15:07:36Z")
HEY! SCSImmons, I remember that post and I never leave home without mine either! 😉 So anyway, I think I am one of those anomoly redheads. The closest links I can find if my maternal grandmother whose hair was auburn and my paternal grandfathers sister who had flaming red hair. Must be recessive like the blue eyes in my children that no one in my recent family has. My mother is of Cuban descent so I have darker skin and very few freckles, I tan easily in the summer as does my blonde daughter but my two brunettes are pasty white. I think God just likes playing jopkes on people. I thought I would add a releveant point. Once I lost my mind and bleached my hair completely blonde - and another time I went brown. Believe me redheads have more fun than both put together. 🙂 And I love a guy who is red all over…but then that was probably TMI. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/25 "2003-03-28T19:18:08Z")
Red hair is recessive. The gene can hang out in your family for ages before being expressed. ---
**Author:** ![mipiace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mipiace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipiace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/26 "2003-03-28T20:11:52Z")
Yeah well thank God for expressive genes! ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/27 "2003-03-28T21:35:31Z")
After reading the article posted by **FabioClone** , it looks to me like blonde/red hair may just be an accidental byproduct of general melainin reduction in northern Europeans. Since this is apparently selected for genetically due to the benefits in Vitamin D? production under reduced sunlight, it may be that blond/red hair is genetically selected for as a linked trait. ---
**Author:** ![mipiace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mipiace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipiace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/28 "2003-03-28T23:24:23Z")
I don’t think it necessarily flies though. As in my case, I have Celtic and Hispanic roots. Red hair but a darker complexion. I know there are red haired people in maternal hispanic side as well so that doesn’t really support that red hair is simply a by product of reduced sunlight incorporated with vitamin D production. I’d like to meet the Scot that wrote that just to ask him what his thoughts were on my genetic code. So even if that were the basis for initial red hair in Neanderthals, then after the genomes are passed through exponential generations, wouldn’t the dominant gene of people who have not had the low sunlight/vitamin exposure (and who there are far more of in the genetic soup of generations) simply weed out the polymorphic gene and in effect cause the extinction of redheads? I agree that red hair has to be a recessive but dominat trait. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/29 "2003-03-29T06:44:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mipiace \* > \*\* > I agree that red hair has to be a recessive but dominat trait. \*\* Wazzat? I do believe that’s an oxymoron. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/30 "2003-03-29T12:05:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by David Simmons \* > **43 is still pretty young** hea hea. I like the way you think!😉 ---
**Author:** ![mipiace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mipiace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipiace)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/31 "2003-03-29T14:54:17Z")
Okay good point this is what happens when I let my fingers type and my brian sleep. Yes recessive but in the right combination with other another recessive gene will dominate over blonde or brown hair…ya’ got me. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461/32 "2003-03-29T15:33:25Z")
I have California blond hair, but my beard is redish… anyway: "Melanin, a chemical produced by specialized cells within each hair follicle, is responsible for giving hair color. Different types of melanin are responsible for different types of hair color—eumalinin for brown or black hair and pheomelanin for yellow or red hair. The type of melanin an individual has is controlled by pigment cells that are, in turn, determined by genes. As we age, the pigment cells at the base of our hair follicles stop producing melanin; without the chemical, our hair turns white. … the chemical is produced for each strand of hair: This is why hairs tend to go gray individually." [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/article/0,12543,355658,00.html](http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/article/0,12543,355658,00.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-hair/164461.md?page=1)