Q: Do all redheads have freckles? A: Although red hair colour is associated with freckles, not all people with ginger hair have them. However, redheads always have pale skin and are more susceptible to sunburn and associated melanomas than brunette or blonde haired individuals.
It's estimated that somewhere around 80% of redheads have freckles, but did you know we aren't born with them? That's right! Babies are not born with freckles, even if they will end up with them later in life. Freckles usually start appearing sometime between two and four.
Fun Facts About Freckles
Freckles occur in people with heritage from around the world. Because they're often seen in people with red hair, freckles are commonly associated with Ireland and Scotland, where this hair color is common as well.
The skin of a redhead is thinner compared to others and is derived from the ectoderm. Teeth enamel is also derived from the ectoderm and thus is thinner than usual. Since the enamel coating is thin, the inner layer of tooth-dentin is more visible and offers a yellowish appearance.
Some evidence suggests redheaded adults often appear older than their actual age. For example, one study published in 2016 in Current Biology found that adults who carry two copies of the MC1R gene variant are more likely to look two years older than other people their age.
And when you meet a red head with blue eyes, you are looking at the rarest colour combination of all for human beings. Around 17 per cent of people have blue eyes, and when combined with 1-2 per cent having red hair, the odds of having both traits are around 0.17 per cent.
Q: Do all redheads have freckles? A: Although red hair colour is associated with freckles, not all people with ginger hair have them. However, redheads always have pale skin and are more susceptible to sunburn and associated melanomas than brunette or blonde haired individuals.
Who gets freckles? Freckles are mostly controlled by the MC1R 'ginger gene' (melanocortin 1 receptor) that redheads have, and a significant number of non-gingers have, too. Of course, there are rare exceptions – some redheads don't have pale and freckly skin, which means that other genes are at play.
However, redheads are not only Celts or Caucasians. Their distribution is a testament to the global movement of DNA across societies and landscapes. Although most common in Northern Europe, parts of Russia, and among European descendants in Australia, there are redheads from all ethnicities and races.
According to an article by evolutionary biology professor Mark Elgar, PhD, of the University of Melbourne, blue-eyed redheads are the absolute rarest, with 0.17% of the population having that combination of hair and eye color.
Research indicates that redheads have higher thresholds for pain and need less vitamin D than the rest of us thanks to the MC1R gene mutation, which gives their hair its hue.
Having red hair and blue eyes is the rarest hair/eye color combination possible. The odds of a person having both of those recessive traits is around 0.17%. Instead, most redheads have brown, hazel or green eyes, according to Medical Daily.
Ireland has the highest number of red-haired people per capita in the world, with the percentage of those with red hair at around 10%. Great Britain also has a high percentage of people with red hair.
Redheads have less melanin in their skin. Remember, melanin protects your skin from the UV rays and makes you look tan (when melanin spreads out evenly). Due to the low number of melanin, redheads develop freckles like crazy constellations rather than getting tan.
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.
The second possible source of problems of pale skin individuals, including redhead individuals, is vitamin D deficiency.
Just because you have red hair doesn't mean that you will or should have red eyebrows. Makeup artists most commonly suggest picking a brow color that is one to two shades darker than your natural brow color.
According to Cartman (and thus adopted by society, obviously), a daywalker is a redhead who can handle being in the sun without stressing too much about getting burnt. They may or may not have freckles or pale skin, and generally have brown eyes.
One of the many facts about redheads is that their hair will never turn grey. The pigment in their hair that causes it to be red will just fade over time, causing their hair to turn blonde or white, but never grey.
8. “How come your eyebrows and eyelashes aren't red?” Some natural redheads have blonde/white or dark eyelashes and eyebrows.
So, the answer to our question 'are redheads going extinct? ' is no. Redheads are less common and blue-eyed-left-handed-redheads are particularly rare, but they're not endangered and they won't die out due to that MC1R recessive gene.
'It's extremely rare for people to have hair that is naturally a strawberry blonde color. Basically, strawberry blonde is mostly based on red tones, with blonde highlights dotted here and there. It takes its name from the Italian renaissance.
Determining the rarest eye color... not so straightforward
Green is the rarest eye color of the more common colors. Outside of a few exceptions, nearly everyone has eyes that are brown, blue, green or somewhere in between. Other colors like gray or hazel are less common.
The rarest natural hair colour is red, which makes up only one to two percent of the global population. You commonly see these hair colours in western and northern areas of Europe, especially Scotland and Ireland. However, natural redheads may not exist for much longer.