National Love Your Red Hair Day

Today, November 5th, is National Love Your Red Hair Day, a day to celebrate redheads everywhere. 

Being redheaded is actually pretty awesome! Did you know that the mutated MC1R gene causes red hair? What's more is that if both parents carry the gene (even if they're not redheads), their baby has a 25% chance of being a redhead.

Did you know that red hair never turns gray? It's true. It simply fades with from red to blonde to silvery white.

You might have heard that people with red hair feel pain more intensely than those of us with other colors of hair and it's true. Redheads may be more sensitive to hot and cold pain, and in surgeries some redheads require 20% more anesthesia than the average patient.

Want more? How cool is this- people with red hair produce their own Vitamin D.

If you think it's easy to dye red hair, think again, it's actually harder. Red hair hold its pigment tighter than any other shade. Unless the red strands are bleached first, they won’t take the color.

Sadly, redheads were considered vampires by the ancient Greeks. Between 1483 and 1784, up to 45,000 women with red hair were killed for alleged witchcraft in Europe.

Redheads are really special- less than 2% of the world’s population are redheads. Scotland has the highest percentage of natural redheads at 13%, followed by Ireland at 10%.

If you're a redhead and feel left out, you might want to make your way to the Netherlands next September. There's an annual festival just for redheads called Roodharigendag and it takes place on the first weekend of September in Breda, and is attended by thousands of redheads!