Blond

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Blond (feminine, blonde) is a hair color found in certain mammals characterised by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin and higher levels of the pale pigment pheomelanin, in common with red hair. From degrees of light brown to pale blond, the various hues of blondness are found in a little less than 1.8% of the world's population.

The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color, going from the very pale blond caused by a patchy, scarce distribution of pigment, to reddish "strawberry" blond colors (strawberry blonde is an uncommon hair color which is also known as ginger) or golden brownish blond colors, the latter with more eumelanin. True blonds have the thinnest strands of hair while the strands of red hair are the thickest. Blond hair can be found in humans and certain breeds of dogs and cats, among other mammalian species.

Etymology, spelling, and grammar

The adjective is a relatively recent borrowing into English from French (the traditional English terms for blond being "fair-haired", "flaxen", or "tow-haired"(towheads are known for very pale blond hair, almost white)). The French word, in turn, derives from the medieval ages. Careful writers in English still distinguish between the masculine blond and the feminine blonde"Blond/Brunet" from The American Heritage Book of English Usage (1996) and, as such, it is the only adjective in the English language with masculine and feminine forms. However, many English speakers will often use either one without regard to the French system of grammatical gender, and without a clear majority usage one way or another.

The word—with one spelling or the other—is also occasionally used to refer to objects that have a color reminiscent of fair hair. Examples include dolls' hair, pale wood, and lager beer.

Origins

Blond hair occurs naturally in humans of all ethnicity, but at such low rates that it is hardly noticeable in most populations. In certain European populations, the occurrence of blond hair is more frequent, leading to the misguided impression that blondness is a European trait.

Based on recent genetic information, it is probable that humans with blond hair became distinctly numerous in Europe about 11,000 to 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Before then, Europeans had dark brown hair and dark eyes, which is predominant in the rest of the world. "Cavegirls were first blondes to have fun", from The Times. Note, the end of the Times article takes a bite of the Disappearing blonde gene hoax; the online version replaced it with a rebuttal.

A long standing question has been why did certain populations in Europe evolve to have such high incidences of blond hair (and wide varieties of eye color) so relatively recently and quickly in the human evolution timescale? If the changes had occurred by the usual processes of evolution (natural selection), they would have taken about 850,000 years. But modern humans, emigrating from Africa, reached Europe only 35,000-40,000 years ago. Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, under the aegis of University of St Andrews, published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human BehaviorAbstract: "European hair and eye color: A case of frequency-dependent sexual selection?" from Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 27, Issue 2, Pages 85-103 (March 2006) that says blond hair evolved very quickly at the end of the last Ice Age by means of sexual selection. According to the study, north European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males. The study argues that blond hair originated in the European region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses and finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. This hypothesis argues that women with blond hair posed an attractive alternative that helped them mate and thus increased the number of blonds.

Relation to age and distribution on body

Blond hair is common in infants and children, so much so that the term "baby blond" is often used very light-colored hair. Babies may be born with blond hair even among groups where adults rarely have blond hair, such as the Chinese, although such natal hair usually falls out quickly. Blond hair tends to turn darker with age, and many children born blond turn brown or even black before or during their teenage years.

The body hair of blonds is also blond, although terminal hair elsewhere on the body may be darker than hair on the head, and even brown. Vellus, on the other hand, may be very light or even transparent. Hair growing from a mole or birthmark may be dark.

Distribution among humans

Fair hair is a stereotypical characteristic of the people of Northern Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and the other Nordic countries and for this reason very pale hair is often referred to as Nordic blond. While blond hair is more common in Scandinavia and Finland than in other countries, the true amounts and degree to which hair in this region is blonde has, however, been obfuscated by the percentage of people bleaching their hair. Sweden, the largest and most populous of the Nordic countries, for example, has the highest percentage of both males and females who make use of hydrogen peroxide and related chemicals to change their natural hair color to that of 'Nordic Blonde'. The range of common hair colours in Scandinavia ranges from very light to dark brown, but black and especially red are also present. Certain caucasians with pale complexions are able to pass as natural blonds because there is little contrast between their natural skin and hair colors. Classic examples of brunettes commonly misperceived as natural blondes include Pamela Anderson, David Beckham, Brad Pitt, Uma Thurman, and Marilyn Monroe. This would not happen where Johnny Depp, Dan Petrescu, Joe Pesci and Jennifer Lopez are concerned, because, although they have appeared as blonds from time to time, the natural hue of their skin as well as the color of hair on other parts of their body, such as eyebrows, fails to make the blend convincing. Apart from Europe, blond hair is present in much smaller proportions in the Middle East and South Asia, though it is very rare there, except amongst the Persians, Kurd, and other Iranians in Iran, Pashtuns and Tajiks of Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Generally, blond hair in Europeans is genetically associated with paler eye color (blue, green and light brown) and pale (sometimes freckled) skin tone. Strong sunlight also lightens hair of any pigmentation, to varying degrees, and causes many blond people to freckle, especially during childhood. Aboriginal Australians, especially in the west-central parts of the continent, also have a fairly high instance of yellow-brown hair. ^*." target="_blank" >The trait is primarily associated with children and women and generally the hair turns to a darker brown color as they age [http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/08/blonde-australian-aboriginals.php.

Cultural reactions

Some dark-haired people have historically found pale hair to be interesting, and even wished to emulate it. The dark-haired women of Rome used to buy wigs made from hair from the flaxen- and red- and dark-haired Celtic and Germanic tribespeople and Greek poli with whom their civilisation came into contact. In modern Western culture, the bleaching of hair is common, especially among women. Bleached blond hair can be distinguished from natural blond hair by exposing it to ultraviolet light, as heavily bleached hair will glow, while natural blond hair will not. Those Vikings who had darker hair colours often bleached it to be blonde or reddish blonde with a type of soap.

However, it must be noted that those with fair hair sometimes desire darker hair (Winona Ryder, for one, is naturally blonde and dyes her hair black). Different cultures around the world often find one type of hair the most desirable.

Some research suggests that fair hair, being characteristic of young children, evokes parent-like feelings of affection and protection in others. This association with children may also be the cause of the common Western stereotype of blonds as being unintelligent (such as fictional character Chrissy Snow, a stereotypical dumb blonde). Two notable sex icons of twentieth-century America who helped popularize this image were Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow. Monroe, who was blonde as a child though her hair darkened, and Harlow, a natural ash blonde, both frequently portrayed "classic" dumb blondes in their films, yet were known privately as intelligent people. Jean Harlow is often credited as being the person who made it acceptable in Western culture for ordinary women to artificially bleach their hair blonde without being perceived as prostitutes.

In the early twentieth century, blond hair was sometimes associated with an Aryan master race, promoted by Nordicists such as Madison Grant and Alfred Rosenberg, although brown and/or dark hair was (and still is) more common in races that supremacists considered 'Aryan'.

Many sub-categories of blonde hair have also been made to describe someone with blonde hair more accurately. Examples include the following: Platinum Blonde (nearly white; only found naturally in children); Towhead (same as platinum blonde); Sandy Blonde (similar to sand in color); Ash Blonde, Dirty Blonde, Dishwater Blonde (these three are much the same, describing a dark blonde shade, though the last two may be considered offensive); Golden Blonde (lighter, with a gold cast); Bottled Blonde (i.e., someone who bleaches their hair); Strawberry Blonde (with a reddish hue); Pool Blonde (greenish hair some people get after habitual use of a chlorinated pool); Hazy Blonde; Zebra Blonde (blonde/brunette with natural blonde/brown streaks in their hair; often occurs when hair is in a design that hides some hair under other hair while out in the sun for long periods of time).

In 2002 there was a worldwide hoax circulating that claimed that scientists predicted blondes were eventually going to become extinct. The hoax cited WHO as the source of the scientific study. (see "Disappearing blonde gene" below).

Notes

Blonde is also the title of the popular novel published in 2000 by Joyce Carol Oates. Blonde is an extremely fictionalized account of Norma Jean Baker's life.

Human appearance | Hair