Love Pink: Red is Not Dead

Do you ever stop and say to yourself - wow, I'm actually ginger?

I do.

Often I will see a photograph of myself in which my hair is looking particularly orange-tinged and manage to blame it on the golden lighting of a sunny afternoon. But then I catch a glimpse of a redhead in the mirror and realise to some surprise that it is me.

I was a freckle-faced, chubby-cheeked child with a hat of red hair, but as I got older the red faded. I was left as what most people would call a strawberry blonde. In my head I am much more blonde than strawberry, so the tint of red always takes me by surprise.

Red heads are a dying breed. Some scientists give us 100 years. Some say 50. Either way, it is safe to say that carrot tops are fairly few and far between.

But therein lies the magic.

Occasionally someone will throw the word 'ginger' my direction in the same way in which you would fling a dirty sock. I just want to laugh. Because despite occasionally forgetting there is any orange in my hair at all, this strawberry blonde yearns to be much, much more ginger.

I want hair that looks like it is on fire. It's all in the name: who wants to be a mouse when you can be a flame?

Someone once told me that I should bleach my hair. Another said that I could put lemon juice on my face to get rid of my freckles. I was perplexed. Tragically as I have got older my freckles have gone into hibernation, but if after a particularly sunny holiday they resurface, I am ecstatic.

Red hair, freckles and an excessively large smile were my childhood. So although there may be a bizarre stigma attached to orange locks, and although my ginger may have faded with age, I would hate to lose my roots altogether.

Rocking Redheads