Got red hair? Today is your day to celebrate!
Today is World Redhead Day,
It’s not clear where this holiday got its start, but it’s become an integral part of the unofficial holiday’s calendar.
To help you celebrate, here are four fun facts about redheads:
- Less than 2 percent of the world’s population has red hair, making it the rarest hair color in the world. It’s the result of the mutated MC1R gene. If both parents carry that gene, their child has a 25% chance of getting lovely, red locks, even if the parents don’t have red hair themselves.
- Red hair will never turn grey. Instead, the pigment simply fades over time. Redheads usually end up with blonde or silvery white hair when they get older.
- Redheads have less hair on their heads. On average, someone with red hair has 90,000 strands of hair. Blonds have 110,000 strands of hair on average and brunettes have the most with 140,000 strands of hair.
- Being a man with red hair though could mean a lower risk for prostate cancer. A study from the British Journal of Cancer found men with naturally red hair were 54% less likely to develop prostate cancer, compared to other men with blond, brown or black hair.
- Red hair isn’t the only thing that’s rare. A high portion of people who are left-handed are also redheads.
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