Some people think redheads have no soul. This is a common mistake. We simply start without one and then begin collecting them as soon as we are born.
Is this done by an accretion of waste souls in the environs (presumably shed by others) or are souls an atomic unit not to be divisible?
I’m … asking for friend.
I had a friend in college who identified as “mulatto” and he was a strawberry blonde with freckles, dark skin, and hazel eyes. A very striking combo! I actually didn’t realize that was his real hair color for months; I thought he bleached it.
I have always been curious about the mutation that causes red hair, especially in my family’s history. Most of my family including myself were born redheads, but our hair color changed at around 5 for me, while my dad still has auburn tones to his.
My beard and sideburns are about 50% orange/red, while the rest of my hair is brown.
The only benefit I have seen from this hair issue of our is that it has kept away the gray hairs. My dad is in his 70’s and is about 50% gray and in my 40’s still have very little gray (it actually looks white, which is even scarier).
Is there something documented about people who start with one hair color and changes after several years (not the whole baby born with X color hair that changes when the “real” hair comes in). I’m talking about 5 or more years later it changing…
Apparently there is archeological evidence that Neanderthals may have been predominantly red-haired. I’m still not sure why most of the people who make the reconstructions seem to assume they never washed their faces though.
It’s important to note that children are not born with freckles. Each freckle represents a soul consumed through wit and charm.
There’s a lot more diversity among red-heads than this, even. They’re missing out, for example, on all the people in New Guinea who have very dark skin and red (and even blond) hair.
The MC1R gene is pretty neat- and it seems involved in a number of other things besides red hair.
Opiate sensitivity, anesthesia sensitivity (or, more accurately, lack thereof), temperature sensitivity, auto-immune disorders… interesting stuff.
Ah, and the aforementioned freckle/soul correlation.
Of course.
THIS is a big thing. My dad was a redhead, and while my hair tends to be somewhere between “hair-colored” and “dirty strawberry blonde” naturally, I clearly inherited some redhead genes from him. Many medications don’t have the desired effect on me. Sometimes the total opposite effect - “non-drowsy” cold medicine will put me right out, but NyQuil barely fazes me. Tylenol and Advil do nothing but upset my stomach, although hydrocodone is fine (and I can take half of one for the effect people usually get from 2). I usually stick to plain aspirin for pain.
I’ve passed this onto my daughter, which has made finding a suitable ADHD medication difficult.
Pre-5 I was mostly blonde. Post-5, it was ~30% clear, 30% brownish-blonde, 30% red, 10% black which averaged out to a light brown (in sunlight, it seems more red); beard came in as ~20% clear, 60% red; 10% black; 10% brownish-blonde. It has only been in the last year or so (late 40’s) that the black hairs have started to turn grey – the rest are fine. Which means that my beard has a lot of grey and my temples have a few white hairs that poke out here and there.
Some resistance to the sun would have been nice when I was a kid, swimming every summer. Oh well, gotta keep those dermatologists in business I guess. 
Have you guys tried Modafinil (Provigil) or Armodafinil (Nuvigil)? It’s quite expensive (>$1000 for a thirty day supply. But my insurance covers it.) but I’m very happy with it. It doesn’t wire you up the way most traditional stimulants (amphetamine, racemic amphetamine, methylphenidate) do. It’s a eugeroic (wakefulness promoting agent.) But I’d call it more like a wakefulness-enhancing agent. I’m able to fall asleep just fine on my normal dose, but if I’ve had a bad night’s sleep, taking it sort of lets me just choose not to feel bleary-eyed and crappy. Plus it does everything for my ADHD that the previous stimulants did without cranking up my blood pressure.
It’s a great drug, and I highly recommend it.
I see quite a few blonde to brown or general darkening of blonde hair situations more often. Maybe a red to blonde or strawberry blonde.
I don’t see too many red to brown situations too often.
I wonder if there is something that “fights” this gene - almost like an immune response to the mutation.
I saw that descriptor in a book once and, well, my hair is such a nondescript shade of brownish most of the time that is just fit. In the summer, I tend toward a more strawberry blonde but my roots are still dark.
Yeah, I hate describing my natural color because I don’t know if it’s dark blond or light brown and it’s got a bit of red in there. There is no short word for that.
I started dying it more red in high school, then I switched to purple many a year ago.
Sandy strawberry blonde?
I used to say strawberry ash blond as a kid but now it’s a bit darker. Sandy is about right, just still awkwardly long. And I never feel it does justice to the blandness if it. Purple is better.
