AD // When I was a child, I hated my red hair. Despite getting compliments on it ALL THE TIME (particularly from adults and my Mum’s friends who would coo over how beautiful my hair was), having red hair, pale skin and freckles made me feel self conscious and constantly jealous of all my friends who had beautiful dark hair and tanned skin or luminous blonde locks.
Photo by Joanna Nix-Walkup on Unsplash
I no longer think that now but low self esteem has always played a big part in my journey with self love. I don’t think it would have mattered what colour my hair was, I’d have still hated the way I looked. But having such a unique hair colour made me even more self conscious. But now, in 2021, I love my natural hair colour and I’m thrilled to be sharing the #LoveYourRedHairDay campaign with Cliphair:
Find out more information about the campaign and Cliphair here:
Cliphair have partnered with How To Be a Redhead to launch National Red Head Day in the UK, a holiday created for redheads by redheads to celebrate the rarest of hair colours.
“We felt that, as over 25% of the total redheads in the world lives in the British Isles, we should be doing more to support them and spread awareness here in the UK.” Riz, Cliphair Co-Founder.
Scotland is the redhead capital of the world. Over 13% of all Scottish people have red hair, with Wales and Ireland making up a further 10%. 4% of the English population are Redheads, an estimated 2.1 million people! Considering only 2% of the entire world’s population has red hair, the British Isles are proudly waving the red flag for redheads everywhere.
This November 5th is National Red Head Day;
National Red Head Day is the brainchild of redhead sisters Adrienne and Stephanie Vendetti, co-founders of HowtobeaRedhead.com, and was first launched in the US in 2012. Adrienne and Stephanie created HowtobeaRedhead.com in 2011 to celebrate redheads in both the fashion and beauty sector.
Alongside their website’s success, the sisters have come leaps and bounds from their humble redheaded beginnings, publishing the “How to be a Redhead” beauty book and curating and marketing a monthly H2BAR Beauty Box.
To this day, the redhead demographic is shockingly misunderstood. High profile beauty labels offer inadequate products to nurture the redhead’s specific beauty requirements.
“As young girls, we both had trouble finding ‘Redhead Friendly’ products because most items caused our skin to irritate or break out.” Stephanie Vendetti.
Back in 2012, Cliphair launched the first redhead range of hair extensions. To this day, they remain the leading seller of red hair extensions, with 10 stunning shades in their bestselling collections.
You can follow Cliphair’s Redhead Campaign on their socials via #RedsHaveMoreFun & #CliphairRedheads.
Photo by Joanna Nix-Walkup on Unsplash
My relationship with my hair:
Like I said, as a kid, I hated my red hair. But there wasn’t much I could do about it at such a young age. As soon as I was old enough, my Mum allowed me to get highlights in my hair. Obviously blonde, obviously to brighten my hair up and make it a *little* less red. I continued to get highlights in my hair until I was old enough to make my own decision with what to do with my hair.
And of course, as a teenager who was still suffering with crippling self esteem issues, I decided to bleach it and go platinum blonde.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my blonde hair. It really suited me and suited my personality at the time. I have a lot of very fond memories from my years with a bright blonde head. But it did SO much damage to my hair – not to mention with the excessive amounts of hair extensions I was using at the time as well. I even started to get bald patches.
Then we had the rise of Hayley Williams. Everyone’s favourite red-headed rock icon. Everyone was dyeing their hair red! I even had a short stint of dyeing it red which any hairdresser out there will know, dyeing red hair is VERY difficult. After 3 washes, it was faded and almost gone completely.
I went through a long period of time where I did absolutely nothing to my hair, due to my crippling anxiety disorder. I just let it grow and grow and ultimately, all the blonde ended up growing out with it. Eventually, around a decade ago now, my hair was back to it’s full natural colour, for the first time since I was about 10.
And I suddenly realised that I loved it. In the sunlight, my hair would sparkle with different shades of red. Areas at the front were a little lighter, underneath was a little darker, almost a mahogany red. In the right lighting, my hair looked like shimmering copper. I wouldn’t touch my hair after that, apart from a cut. It was such amazing quality and I finally felt like me.
Having naturally red hair is great. Some of my favourite actresses are redheads (Jessica Chastain, Isla Fisher, Julianne Moore) and after reading the above statistics, it’s actually pretty cool to be in such a small population of people with this hair colour!
All hair colours are beautiful. Whatever makes you, you, is beautiful. Whether you’re blonde, brunette, a redhead or have dyed your hair pink – rock it with confidence. I’m currently growing my hair again and I can’t wait for it to get to a lovely long length where my hair can be my main feature, once again!
I remember sticking out as a kid, since hardly anyone in my school also had red hair. Some other kids called me Opie (the kid from “The Andy Griffith Show”). But at some point, I was just part of the crowd. In college, I was proud of my red hair for being different. And now that I’m 49 years old, my hair is turning gray and I’m sad to see the redness fade 🙂
Awh no! Glad you learned to love your red hair!
I am a natural redhead and have pretty much had a positive relationship with it overall. I have had abuse hurled at me and some people did try to bully me for it (unsuccessfully) and even had the opposite where some men have really liked it and fetishised it/me and said some very inappropriate and upsetting things (it’s a rollercoaster, isn’t it?!). I’ve never coloured my hair but my best friend who is also a redhead has lightened it to the point of it being blonde because she was bullied and tormented by it at school. I know that we can be targets, much like anyone else who is a bit unusual or looks different from the crowd, and that’s what I would wish to change — that other people’s reactions to it was not so extreme (speaking from my own experiences only). Sometimes I do wish I could blend in a bit and go unnoticed (not that everyone is looking — it’s just nice to be a bit anonymous every now and then, haha). I am so glad you love your hair now — it’s a part of you and you should definitely rock it like a redhead!
I’m glad you’ve always loved your hair, regardless of what people have said! It’s just hair at the end of the day though, right? It seems a ridiculous thing to get picked on for.