Under Ice - In Defence of Red Hair

In Defence of Redheads

A statue of a red-headed Eve after the fall in a church in Stavanger, Sweden

Klimt's Goldfische, originally titled, "To my critics"... You tell 'em Klimt!

In the film The Last King of Scotland there's a bit when the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin tells his Scottish physician that if he could be anything instead of Ugandan it would be Scottish. Except for red hair, which, he says, “We Africans find quite disgusting”.

While he doesn't explain why, perhaps it's to do with the Nguenguerous of the Cameroon. As targets of ritual murder in some African regions, their redheaded albino colouring is believed to be the product of menstrual intercourse.

Or maybe it's because, as colour therapists remind us, red is the hue which stimulates energy, increases blood pressure and respiration, the heartbeat and pulse rate. As such, it can always guarantee a response.

I prefer to think it's because folk are jealous. We redheads are special and rare. While Scotland can be credited with the highest percentage of natural redheads in the world (13%), followed by Ireland with 10%, in the US it's just 2%. In a crowd of amorphous dishwater blonds and non-descript brunettes our hair draws attention, and as a minority we are demonised and mistrusted.

Our predecessors? The list is impressive, a rogues' gallery of intriguing mis-shapes, mistakes and misfits. Despite the lack of evidence in the scriptures, Judas is often portrayed as redheaded, signifying his problematic role in the New Testament, as is Mary Magdalene, the erotic, sacred muse and supposed prostitute. Further back in the Bible, Adam's dark, complex, apocryphal wife Lilith, the original scarlet woman, also had red hair, while Michelangelo's Temptation frescoes in the Sistine Chapel depict Satan as a bare-breasted red-headed serpent temptress handing a shiny red apple to a flame-haired Eve. Later Eve's son Cain will inherit her trait and also fall from grace.

Michelangelo's Temptation of Adam and Eve

I say... Mary Magdalene in the Cave (Jules Joseph Lefebvre)

The first redheaded British monarch, Boudicca, was described by the Greek historian Dio Cassius as having "a great mass of red hair [which] fell over her shoulders". However, despite contemporary paintings showcasing her unnaturally pale skin, rouged cheeks and vivid red hair - possibly the most haunting images of childhood history lessons - it was Elizabeth I who helped reverse discrimination and superstition against red-haired people.

While it's hard to imagine buxom red-heads being considered unattractive these days, the Pre-Raphaelite painters can also be credited for making "certain types of face and figure once literally hated, actually the fashion. Red hair - once to say a woman had red hair was social assassination - is the rage."¹ With their cascading red hair, full red lips, voluptuous bodies and pearlescent skin, such women - or "stunners" as they were called at the time – were highly-prized for their rarity and considered ideal muses. Posed in idyllic settings of lush, bright jewel colours, often with thorny roses tumbling over chamber walls, the models depicted subjects drawn from Greek myths and literature and represented a highly-eroticised, idealised view of feminine beauty: strong and sensual, fecund and divine - no mean feat!

Possibly my favourite pre-Raphs: Rossetti's La Ghirlandata and Lady Lilith

The paintings of Gustave Klimt show a similar obsession with the redhead. Less delicate and ethereal, here she is a flawed and earthy femme fatale personifying the dark side of sexual attraction. Gorgeous in her fiery, dazzling sensuality, she is the redhead unclothed - cellulite and all:

Klimt's Danae - the perfect life-modelling gig. Wake me when you're done!

Drawn up in a foetal position, possibly underwater, with gold and silver seminal flow gushing between her thighs, Danea mates with Zeus, who is depicted in the form of a golden shower (Matron!). Although Danae is asleep, the flushed cheeks and erect nipples suggest she may well be enjoying this intensely feminine experience. She is voluptuous and fleshy, her femininity gorging the space in the frame, while masculinity is reduced to an abstract symbol: a small black rectangle, barely noticeable.

Likewise, in Klimt's Goldfische the curved body shapes of women glide and writhe through another enchanted, womb-like underworld, in a celebration of uninhibited femininity (the goldfish looks very happy to be among them). The scene would be intimate, were it not for one of the water-nymphs thrusting her ample peachy posterior towards us, while looking directly at us over her shoulder. As in all erotica, it is the directness of the gaze that startles and throws the viewer. The subject is aware of the onlooker's attention, as if to challenge and defy, and both subject and observer become voyeurs. Aggressive? It's certainly an effective "up yours" from Klimt to his critics. And rather a nice one at that.

Like a bull to a red rag, I've always been drawn to fellow redheads. Redheaded icons of my youth are many, including Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, who demonstrated the infinite superiority of red over blond, and Tori Amos, who herself declares "I serve the Magdalene"². However, if ever there was a cautionary example warning against the perils of over-enthusiastic dying, it's Tori. Over the years her hair has thinned so drastically that while promoting and touring her most recent album she had to resort to a bright orange wig. Which is fine, although one suspects the Ronald McDonald look wasn't quite what she was aiming for:

Tori looked like she'd been drawn by a four-year old on her recent tour.

Certainly the accolade of High Priestess of Red has to go to Jane Goldman. In fact, to describe her as a redhead would be an understatement. Her violently dyed hair not only attracts attention, but awe in those of us who aspire to achieve the same stunning, shocking shade:

Shock and awe: Jane Goldman's hair always seems to look lush.

How to do this? They say it's not easy being green, but I'd wager it's much more difficult being red, as Tori Amos has shown. Every artificial redhead will tell you that our colour is notoriously the most problematic to maintain. In the words of one forum poster: "The promise of bright colour is fulfilled when you first dye it, but long lasting? Hmmm..." This is because artificial reds are the smallest molecules in the spectrum and therefore the easiest to dislodge when washing. "You have to do everything in your power to stop it fading," said my hairdresser, which means investing in the best quality bleach and dye possible, and being prepared to spend time not only applying the dye properly, but using the right shampoos and conditioners to preserve its intensity. A friend advises:

... the trick is to bung the dye straight on after bleaching. Bleaching makes the hair really porous, so if you dye it straight away it will stain the hair (that's why instructions usually say don't dye right after bleaching, but that is actually what you want, to stop it fading). Another thing is pressing the dye into your hair shaft, once its allover, rather than rubbing it in - rubbing will encourage breakage, but pressing it squeezes it into all the little ridges... Once it's on, put a carrier bag over your hair, or shower cap if you have one and wrap it in a towel - heat is good for the colour developing. If you can be bothered, give it a blast with a hair dryer...³

Over the years my hair has taken on a variety of shades, hues, tones and tints, in my quest for the perfect shade of red. Even before going grey I was always doing things to make my hair redder - starting out with henna, coloured shampoos and mousses, before graduating to "permanent" dyes (and discovering there was no such thing). But whether coloured by a professional or tinted by myself with a box plucked from the shelf in the chemist's, I always opted for the most psychedelic, Mephistophelean red I could find. It never entered my head ever to try anything different. Blond wouldn't suit my colouring and is all too ubiquitous, while black would make me look funereal. Brown is just boring, so for me there was never any other choice. I have always loved the combination of pale skin, red hair and powdery pink lipstick, wearing colours to enhance the effect, such as gold and cobalt blue, mossy greens and olives, burnt oranges and earth colours in general.

It was only recently that it dawned on me that how obsessed I may be becoming with the colour red, especially when it comes to hair. So much so that it feels like a quest: the Holy Grail of hair colour. No other colour is so fetishised and mythologised. Blondes may have more fun, but they don't have better sex - not least according to Jonathan Swift, who in Gulliver's Travels states that "the red-haired of both the sexes are the more libidinous and mischievous than the rest". Or Michel Faber, in whose belting novel The Crimson Petal and the White it is Sugar the bewitching redhead, the "crimson petal" of the title, who leads a somewhat energetic and rococo sex life. And for the anti-hero Grenouille of Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume it is the combination of red hair + pale skin = stellar beauty. The perfect equation. Fittingly, Dracula author Bram Stoker was also red-haired, with a red beard, and it is no coincidence that William Golding chose to make bad boy Jack a redhead in Lord of the Flies. Even a whole country was inspired to name itself after the colour: Russia means "land of reds" in honour of a redheaded Viking called Rurik.

Perhaps we owe it all to the colour of foxes, or the fact that red hair is a genetic mutation, a degenerative characteristic, and that we therefore find ourselves in the minority. Whatever the reason, red can always be guaranteed to stir up passions to this day. The persecution of redheads is not just the stuff of ancient superstition which can be forgiven of a people who perhaps knew no better. Can the same be said of an Irish judge, who as recently as 2001 fined a man for disorderly conduct, stating, "I am a firm believer that your hair colouring suggests you have a temper." The fact is, red hair continues to cause controversy and make national news headlines. What about that family who had to move house because of the bullying their hair colour caused? Even a baby born with red hair recently made tabloid pages.

"I like to be with minorities wherever I go,"⁴ said film director John Waters in a recent interview, something which has me nodding vigorously in agreement. I will never let the bullies intimidate me. Don't they know that in Greek mythology redheads turn into vampires when they die? They'd better watch out. "In England, if you fancy people with red hair you must be kinky," said Damien Lewis. Bring it on! Les Rouges Passion? Pure Ruby Power? Devilish Red? Give me Apocalyptic Red. The more disgusting the better. Take that, Idi Amin.

¹Page 3 of Lizzie Siddall: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, by Lucinda Hawksley. Quote attributed to Victorian writer Mary Howitt.

²Page 60 of Tori Amos, Piece by Piece, by Tori Amos and Ann Powers.

³With thanks to Miss Switchblade.

⁴Page 12 of The Observer Magazine, 30 September 2007.

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