Found an old article I loved about Red Heads.
(No mention of lack of souls)
Seeing Red by Janie Magruder
Arizona Sun, Living Section, April 12, 2002
Good grief, Charlie Brown, you were right all along.
After centuries of being teased about their pale skin and lashes, shinned over their supposed short fuses, even burned as witches or buried alive to extinguish their fiery personalities, little –and big- red haired girls are in. Way in. Red hot, you might say.
On television, the big screen and the pages of the trendiest magazines, shades of strawberry blonde to deep burgundy frame faces everywhere
“People want to be unique, and what’s more unique than a redhead?” asks Candi Wilt, a 26-year-old carrottop from Lawerence, Kan., who runs a redheads Web site that has doubled its membership in the past year.
Only an estimated 2 to 5 percent of the U.S. population is born with red hair, due to the recessive nature of the gene that produced it. That gene, the melanocortin 1 receptor, was discovered on the 16th of the 23 human chromosome pairs in 1995 by Jonathan Rees, a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Red hair is a little more prevalent in Jan Libera’s family. The redhead’s father and grandfather had red hair and so does her son, Conner, 8.
“My dad was so thrilled, and for the first six months of (Conner’s) life, he’d call me every week and say, ‘Is his hair still red? Is his hair still red,’” says the Tempe mother of three kids (the other two are brunet).
Statisically, though, the vast majority of red hair comes from a bottle. Women are tinting their hair red at an unprecedented rate. New research by Clairol shows 30 percent of women ages 18 to 34 who color their hair are going auburn or red, compared with 27 percent brown and 26 percent blonde.
Geographically, the West leads the pack, with 20 percent of all retail sales of hair color being red, compared with 17 percent on the East Coast. Nationally, sales of red color are up 17 percent in the past six months.
Rolf Lohnse, of the Valley’s Rolf’s salons, said his red-tint business has jumped 30 percent since last fall.
“Everyone wants to be red,” Lohse says. “Hair color follows fashion, and everything is kind of retro ‘80s now, that rock star look. Red is so hot. It’s strong; it’s sexy; it lights up a room.”
The “enhanced” burgundy color of Beth Bennet Lopez’s hair, next to her porcelain skin, gets plenty of attention.
“It makes me look special,” says Lopez, a natural brunette who looked too pale as a blonde. “I get a lot of people in the grocery store, ‘Oh, I love your hair color,’ and that’s the kind of attention I want.”
A physician assistant for the Skin and Cancer Center of Arizona in Chandler, Lopez says natural redheads are at a higher risk for developing skin cancer because their skin lacks the brown/black pigment that protects skin from burning. Redheads learn the hard, painful way that they can’t tan like their less fair sisters and brothers.
At age 25, after years of basting in the sin under a layer of baby oil, Libera had a malignant melanoma removed from her abdomen. Now, she’s religious about wearing sun block and visits the dermatologist for a skin check every year.
Mindful of the damage sun can do to her freckly skin, Paula Pennypacker of Scottsdale wears own brand of sun block. Pennypacker launched Just For Redheads beauty products in 1993 after running for mayor in Toledo, Ohio, and being dismayed at her scary black-eyed appearance on television.
With her husband, Duane Abbajay, Pennypacker today sells more than 150 products has increased sales 10 percent each year and does half of her business via the Internet (www.JustForReadheads.com).
Now with a redhaired, 2-year-old son of her own, Pennypacker remembers being teased about her hair and freckles as a child.
“I hated it. I didn’t have a lot of boyfriends. But later, it was a great political attribute. I got a lot of attention, and now I love it.”
Perhaps because of his height, Chad Prewitt, Arizona State University’s own Big Red, dodged what’s been called “the Howdy Doody syndrone,” referring to the redheaded, freckle-faced, doofus-looking boy puppet on television in the 1950s.
“I always got old ladies coming up and saying, ‘I love your hair,’” says the 6-foot-9 235-pound carrot top, a senior and forward on the Sun Devils basketball team.
Wilt started her Web site (www.realmofredheads.com) about four years ago after an Internet search for redheads revealed little more than XXX-rated adult sites. Today, she has more than 2,000 redhaired members from all 50 states and 27 countries who discuss books, share makeup tips and wish each other happy birthday online.
“I think redheads have a bond, at least with the natural ones,” Wilt says.
Members range in age from 14 to 60-plus and are both natural and faux redheads. Wilt doesn’t discriminate between those who were born with red hair or got it from a bottle, a decision that has riled some real reds.
“They don’t like that the others didn’t pay their dues, they didn’t grow up being teased. But I don’t agree. I look at them wanting to join as a flattering thing.”
These days, you can’t top the copper top.
Facts and Fantasies
-About 13 percent of Scotland’s citizens are redheaded, the highest percentage in the world.
-Redheads were a favorite subject of 19th-century British artists, including the Pre-Raphaelites and John W. Waterhouse.
-Redheads have between 85,000 and 90,000 hairs on their heads, compared with blondes (140,000) and brunettes (180,000). Redheads appear to have more hair because red hair shafts are much thicker than those of blondes and brunettes.
-Queen Elizabeth I washed her hair three times a year in lye. It fell out. She wore a red wig.
-Witches were said to need the fat of a person with red hair when making poisons.
-In Denmark, it’s an honor to have a redheaded child. In Corsica, if you pass one on the street you spit and turn around. In Poland, it’s said if you pass three redheads, you’ll win the lottery.
-Question: Why do gentlemen prefer blondes?
Answer: Because there aren’t enough redheads to go around.
Q: What do you call a redhead with an attitude?
A: Normal.
Q: How do you get a redhead to argue with you?
A: Say anything.
Q: What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is every night?
A: A redhead.
Great Reds
-Actress Nicole Kidman – real
-Director Ron Howard – real
-Former St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire – real
-Singer Mick Hucknall of Simply Red – real
-Actress Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City) – fake
-Comedian Lucille Ball – fake
-Prince Harry – real
-Yosemite Sam
-Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York – real
-Singer Bette Midler – fake
-Singer Geri Halliwell – fake
-Actor Eric Stoltz – real
-Tennis pro Boris Becker – real
-Actress Sissy Spacek – real
-Actor David Caruso – real
-Comedian Red Skelton – real
-Jessica Rabbit
-Bozo the Clown – fake
-Actress Debra Messing – fake
-Ann Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII – real
-Comedian Carrot Top – real
-Actress Marg Helgenberger – real
-Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone
-Thomas Jefferson - real
