Hairstyling was introduced to Roman society around 300 bc, with noble women dying their hair red after seeing it on Gaul traders, whom also dyed their hair red as a symbol of status and rank. Middle class Romans typically dyed their hair blonde and the lower and poor class dyed their hair black.
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.
The first permanent hair color—jet black—can also be attributed to Ancient Rome, but it took a few hundred years for Greeks and Romans to introduce more color choices beyond black.
It wasn't until the early 20th century that hair dye as we know it – chemical, in a rainbow of colors, shop-bought or salon-applied – came to be.
The development of synthetic dyes for hair is traced to the 1860s discovery of the reactivity of para-phenylenediamine (PPD) with air. Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal, is recognized for creating the first synthetic hair dye in 1907.
Estimates on the original occurrence of the currently active gene for red hair vary from 20,000 to 100,000 years ago. A DNA study has concluded that some Neanderthals also had red hair, although the mutation responsible for this differs from that which causes red hair in modern humans.
Historians believe red hair actually originated in central Asia about 50,000 years ago. It is believed there are so many redheads in Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia because our redhead ancestors migrated to cooler climates.
While the recipe earlier called for saffron, many women of the era also used henna imported from India. Henna dyes red-orange and is the basis for many of my herbal hair colors.
According to the survey, the majority of men (42%) found blonde hair to be the most attractive. This was followed by brunette (36%), red (16%), black (5%), and gray (1%).
From about 1840 to 1865, men wore their hair long with big mustaches and sideburns or beards, like U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. During this Victorian period, women wore chignons at the top of their heads with locks falling on either side of their face.
Red hair. Red hair ranges from light strawberry blond shades to titian, copper, and completely red. Red hair has the highest amounts of pheomelanin, around 67%, and usually low levels of eumelanin. At 1–2% of the west Eurasian population, it is the least common hair color in the world.
Caramel, honey, gold, copper, and strawberry give a healthy brightness that makes us look and feel younger. (Framing your face with lighter shades draws the eye away from any complexion concerns, as well.)
'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.
Rarest kind of redhead
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.
Green is the rarest eye color in the world, with only 2% of the world's population (and fewer than one out of ten Americans) sporting green peepers, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).
Most women think brunette hair is the sexiest, as 25% of those polled favoured this option. Womens' second preference is blonde, which was voted as the sexiest hair colour by 19.6% of women. Again, red took third spot, accounting for 11.8% of womens' votes.
A general observation across experiments was that straight hair was perceived as younger, healthier, and more attractive than wavy hair and darker shades (medium copper and brown) were perceived more positively than blonde hair.
CNN recently shared research that men are most likely to prefer women with long hair past the shoulders. Guys were asked to rate the same women's faces based upon short, medium-length, plus super long locks. Males rated ladies with longer hair as more attractive.
In the Victorian and Edwardian era, it was recommended to wash the hair between thrice a week and once a month. Besides washing the hair, frequent hair brushing was used to keep the hair clean and healthy.
It's no secret that people in the 19th century lived to a different standard of hygiene than we are used to now. Even members of the upper classes would't bathe more than once or twice a week, and a lady only washed her hair a few times a month, if she was fastidious.
The fashion for Italian blondes repeated itself—as hair-color trends do – several hundred years later in the 1700s, when Venetian women would recline in the sun on specially built terraces with their hair drenched in corrosive solutions of lye to achieve golden locks. Blond hair was no longer limited to prostitutes.
Natural red hair is the rarest hair color in the world. A mere one to two percent of people are born with auburn hair. The prevalence is slightly higher in the northern and western fringes of Europe, especially the British Isles (mainly Ireland and Scotland), than in the rest of the world.
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.
And the statistics bear that stereotype out. Ireland has the highest per capita percentage of redheads in the world -- anywhere from 10 to 30 percent, according to Eupedia, a website that explores European genetics and ancestry. They are almost equally prevalent in Scotland and other pockets of Celtic pride.