13 Facts About Red Hair (To Impress And/Or Tease The Carrot Tops In Your Life)
![13 Facts About Red Hair (To Impress And/Or Tease The Carrot Tops In Your Life)](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/9/783529_320x180.jpg)
Red headed people get a lot of grief in this world. From being mocked as gingers, freaks and mutants--it's actually really strange that it's more or less socially acceptable to completely ridicule the freckled folk just because they look like a race of evil subterranean corpse mutants. Just kidding. We've got nothing but love and respect for everyone, whatever color their hair is.
To that end, we've assembled more than a dozen fascinating facts about red hair to impress any fiery haired friends you may have.
For example, did you know redheads actually need higher doses of anesthesia and lower doses of pain killers?
We are all genetic mutants, but redheads are the rarest as far as hair color is concerned. Researchers are still discovering the ways redheads are different from the rest of us, but here are 13 facts to hold us over until the next study gives us more reason to tease the gingers in our lives.
![Red hair in lated central Asia The red hair gene mutation failed to provide sun protection, but when people starting migrating to Northern Europe, the pale-skinned mutants were able to produce Vitamin D BETTER. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/6/783516.jpg)
Source: Washington Post
![Redheads need 20% about more anesthesia They also need lower doses of painkillers, like opiods. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/0/783520.jpg)
Source: UCI Health
![Redheads are overrepresented in commercials 11% of actors in U.S. commercials are redheads, despite only occurring in 2-6% of the U.S. population. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/3/783523.jpg)
Source: The Atlantic
![1% to 2% of the population have natural red hair The rarest combo? Red hair and blue eyes. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/4/783514.jpg)
Source: BBC
![Some Neanderthals probably had red hair A DNA study showed they had the MC1R gene, which plays an important part in making gingers ginger. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/8/783528.jpg)
Source: BBC
![Mark Twain had red hair He once said, When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/5/783515.jpg)
Source: Washington Post
![Research shows red hair is not sexually desirable People are attracted to hair colors they are most often exposed to. Also, heterosexual men tend to prefer women with lighter hair that signal youth while women prefer darker hair that can show maturity. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/4/783524.jpg)
Source: Current Psychology
![We call them redheads instead of orangeheads because we didn't have a word for orange until the 500s Red was one of the first color words, but the word orange didn't show up in the English language until after the arrival of the fruit to England. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/9/783519.jpg)
Source: All Things Linguistic
![Redheads are more sensitive to the cold Researchers believe their temperalover-active. gene is CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/1/783521.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![Lex Luthor originally had luscious red hair An artist's mistake led to his iconic baldness. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/7/783517.jpg)
Source: Screenrant
![Redheads have less, but thicker, hair Blondes have 140,000 strands of hair per average, while redheads only have ooo. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/6/783526.jpg)
Source: USA Today
![People with red hair perceive pain differently They are more sensitive to specific types of pain but may have higher general pain tolerance. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/8/783518.jpg)
Source: NIH
![George Washington was a redhead He powdered his hair, as was fashionable at the time. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/0/783510.jpg)
Source: Mount Vernon