Why you can’t beat being ginger!
I was scrolling through The Guardian and found myself drawn to an article titled “The one change that worked: I was born with brown hair. But becoming Ginger Rachel brought me true happiness” by Rachel Keenan. To summarise, Rachel tried all different hair colours but once she went ginger, she vowed to never change. This was no surprise to me, I’m ginger (not a red head), I love it and always have loved it. So, I’ve decided to write a list of all the joys (and some of the pains) of being ginger, so that all you out there who have never experienced it can have a glimpse of what it really means.
The best things about being ginger
Everyone remembers you, you stand out:
Ginger hair is bold, fiery, and dramatic. You immediately stick out like a sore thumb in a room (this is unless you’re in a room full of the more artificially created hair colours). I can’t count the number of times I’ve entered a party and someone unknown to me has remembered who I am. It can be rather embarrassing, but I’ve learnt to style it out. As much as I’d love to hold my fascinating personality responsible for these interactions, what’s really to blame is the fact that wherever I go I tend to be the only ginger in the room. I don’t know what came first, being an attention seeker or being ginger.
2. Don’t believe what they say; you can wear anything:
I have ‘Pretty in Pink’ to thank for my confidence in wearing pink and any colour we are often told we shouldn’t wear. The trick is to get the shades right. I might not suit a bright bubble gum pink, but I have a baby pink shirt that will prove any ginger sceptics wrong. I do tend to shy away from red but that’s a personal preference, if you want to give it a try don’t let anyone stop you!
3. Very helpful when deciding what to go as for a fancy dress party:
Being ginger allows you to skip all the stress most people go through when deciding who to dress as for a fancy dress party. No matter what the theme there’s usually an iconic ginger that fits into it somewhere. Five years ago, I purchased a union jack mini dress that has been re-worn at almost every fancy dress party during my time at university (may be a tad boring but its saved me a lot of money).
4. We feel less pain (apparently this is true, but I have nothing to compare it to):
When I first discovered this, it made me feel superhuman, which gingers basically are. I’d love to know how they worked this out, but I’m scared it might have involved experimenting on gingers.
5. Freckles are adorable:
I love freckles. Not only for their charm, but also because in the summer, if I gather enough, they will combine together to form what (from afar) actually looks like a decent tan.
6. It’s a useful dating filter:
When guys are into gingers they’re really into gingers (I’m sure this applies to girls too). We are like marmite you either love us or hate us. In some ways this is a pain because it inevitably limits the size of the already slim dating pool. However, what it does mean is that the pool in which we are fishing from is filled with fish that are obsessed with us, and this does tend to make the success rate of our fishing more successful in the long run.
7. Gingers have more fun:
Very controversial since blondes seem to have ownership over fun. Nevertheless, coming from a family of all blondes (I’m one of five girls) I feel I’m in a strong position to make this statement.
The down sides of being ginger:
Everyone remembers you, you can’t avoid not standing out:
I’ve discussed how this is a positive thing, but it can also be really annoying. Being remembered from a party is brilliant when you were on great form. Its considerably less brilliant when you get black-out drunk, spend months trying to get over your hang-anxiety, and then find yourself confronted with a stranger who decides to give you a nice recap of everything stupid you did that night.
2. You’re always given Ginger Spice:
I’ve come to embrace this, but growing up all I wanted was to be Posh!
3. Coming across another ginger in public (especially on the tube):
Since there are so few of us out there, people get weirdly excited when they see more than one of us in a room together. Its like we have some kind of magical power to capture people’s attention which is enhanced if there’s more than one of us in the room. For some odd reason, I’ve always found the general public more sensitive to our super-human ginger powers when on the London underground. I once walked onto the tube to find there was already two other gingers on board. The whole tube fell basically into hysterics which for London is really quite impressive. To put this into perspective I was on the bus going through Pimlico when a troop of stark-naked men cycled past us; no one batted an eyelid.
4. Apparently, we bleed more (again I have nothing to compare this too):
Science says not only do we bleed more but we also have a tendency to wake up during surgery. This means we need more anaesthetic than the average person (I can’t explain the science behind this, but I’d like to). I’ve luckily never had to go into surgery but since leaning this little fact, surgery has been fast tracked to the top of my list of biggest fears, along with being buried alive and learning how to drive.
5. Red-head vs Ginger debate:
I don’t see the point of this debate, no one has naturally red hair. Despite what some people seem to think, my hair is not the same colour as a tomato. It’s a beautiful mixture of orange, yellow, red, brown, and gold. To reduce this collaboration of colours to just red is not just wrong, but downright offensive. However, my face does hold the capacity to transform into a tomato at any given moment. I’ve found it a very helpful way to communicate my fear to any potential crush, interviewer or any scary adult for that matter.
6. The sun is my enemy:
It’s true, my biggest weakness is the sun. I had an Australian flat mate at university who would find it deeply disturbing to see me putting on sun cream when it was only 13 degrees. I had to constantly reiterate to her that while it may be embarrassing putting sun cream on my face when I still need to wear a coat, it’s far less embarrassing than being the burnt and ginger during springtime in Scotland. I know I’ve put this in the down sides of being a ginger section but there are times when I’d consider this a positive. Even if you don’t burn easily wearing suncream is extremely important for all skin types. So, my obsession with wearing sun cream may be laughed at now, but when I’m old with no wrinkles you will all be wishing you were as neurotically addicted to SPF as me.
So, these are the positive and negative sides of being ginger, although the positives far outweigh the negatives. These weird and wonderful things are part of what makes being ginger so magical. Its more than just a colour, it’s an attitude and an identity. It’s the hair colour equivalent of an exclamation mark, and it sits on top of your head giving the world an insight into your personality before they’ve even met you. I’m sure there will be a few of you out there that might not agree with everything I’ve written, some might even like the term ‘red head’. But I’m pretty sure us gingers/red heads can all agree on one thing: being ginger is undoubtedly the most fun, interesting and fabulous hair colour you can have, if you don’t believe me give it a try like Rachel did!
Esme Gordon-Craig