Blond

For other uses, see Blond (disambiguation).

A portrait of three blonde children (1724) by Denner Balthasar.

Blond (also spelled blonde, see below) or fair-haired is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color, going from the very pale blond caused by a patchy, scarce distribution of pigment, to reddish "strawberry" blond colors or golden-brownish blond colors, the latter with more eumelanin.

Etymology, spelling, and grammar

"Portrait of a lady in yellow" (1470) by Alesso Baldovinetti.

The word blonde was first attested in English in 1481 and derives from Old French blont and meant a "colour midway between golden and light chestnut". It largely replaced the native term fair, from Old English fæger. The French (and thus also the English) word blonde has two possible origins. Some linguists say it comes from Medieval Latin blundus, meaning yellow, from Old Frankish *blund which would relate it to Old English blonden-feax meaning grey-haired, from blondan/blandan meaning to mix. Also, Old English beblonden meant dyed as ancient Germanic warriors were noted for dying their hair. However, other linguists who desire a Latin origin for the word say that Medieval Latin blundus was a vulgar pronunciation of Latin flavus, also meaning yellow. Most authorities, especially French, attest the Frankish origin. The word was reintroduced into English in the 17th century from French, and was for some time considered French, hence blonde for females/noun and blond for males/adjective.

Some writers of English may continue to distinguish between the masculine blond and the feminine blonde and, as such, it is one of the few adjectives in English with separate masculine and feminine forms. However, many writers use only one of the spellings without regard to gender, and without a clear majority usage one way or another. The word, especially the feminine blonde form, is also often used as a noun to refer to a woman with blonde hair, but some speakers see this usage as sexist and reject it. (Another hair color word of French origin, brunet(te), also functions in the same way in orthodox English.)

The word is also occasionally used, with either spelling, to refer to objects that have a color reminiscent of fair hair. Examples include pale wood and lager beer.

Varieties

Many sub-categories of blond hair have also been invented to describe someone with blond hair more accurately. Common examples include the following:

• blond / flaxen – when distinguished from other varieties, "blond" by itself refers to a light but not whitish blond with no traces of red, gold, or brown. This color is often described as "flaxen".
• yellow – yellow-blond ("yellow" can also be used to refer to hair which has been dyed yellow).
• platinum blond / towheaded – white-blond; found naturally almost exclusively in children. "Platinum blond" is often used to describe dyed hair, while "towheaded" is generally left to natural hair color.
• sandy blond – greyish-brownish blond.
• golden blond – rich, golden blond.
• strawberry blond / Venetian blond – light reddish blond.
• dirty blond / dishwater blond – light blond and sandy blond mixed together in stripes (occurs naturally)
• ash-blond – light sandy blond.
• bleached blond / peroxide blond – artificial blond slightly less white than platinum blond.

• 
  Flaxen (Silvia Saint).
• 
  Yellow (Akseli Kokkonen).
• 
  Platinum blond (Sharin Foo).
• 
  Sandy blond (Daniel Craig).
• 
  Golden blond (Dolph Lundgren).
• 
  Strawberry blond (Chelsea Handler).
• 
  Dirty blond.
• 
  Bleached blond (Madonna).

Some less frequently used categories include:

• sunny blond - Very bright, ranging from almost yellow to light yellow.
• zebra blond - streaked blonde and brunette
• pool blond - Blonde tinted with green due to exposure to copper in swimming pools. There are many terms for this form of blonde.
• honey blond - Blonde with a honey-colored tint. It can be dark blonde or light blonde.
• dark blond - Not quite dark enough to be considered brown, however a much darker version of traditional blond.

Origins

"Heathland Princess" (1889) by Fritz von Uhde.

Lighter hair colors occur naturally in Europeans, and less frequently in other ethnicities. In certain European populations, the occurrence of blonde hair is very frequent. The hair color gene MC1R has at least seven variants in Europe and the continent has an unusually wide range of hair and eye shades. Based on recent genetic information carried out at three Japanese universities, the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blonde hair in Europe has been isolated to about 11,000 years ago during the last ice age. Before then, Europeans mostly had darker hair and eyes, which is predominant in the rest of the world.

Isabel I of Castile, a naturally blonde Spaniard.

There is no consensus, but many theories, as to why certain populations in Europe had a high incidence of blond hair. If there had been no specific selective pressure on hair color, scientists estimate it would have taken 850,000 years for the trait to randomly appear, but modern humans, emigrating from Africa, only reached Europe 35,000-40,000 years ago.

One theory is that that early men simply found blonde hair more attractive. Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, under the aegis of University of St Andrews, published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior that says blond hair evolved very quickly at the end of the last ice age by means of sexual selection. According to the study, the appearance of blonde hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for males made scarce due to long, arduous hunting trips; this hypothesis argues that women with blonde hair posed an alternative that helped them mate and thus increased the number of blonds.

Another reason men may have preferred blonde women is that light hair color is a marker of youth; since many Caucasian children have blonde hair but it darkens as they mature, blonde girls or women would appear younger and therefore, more fertile.

A theory propounded in The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994), says blonde hair became predominant in Europe in about 3000 BC, in the area now known as Lithuania, among the recently arrived Proto-Indo-European settlers, and the trait spread quickly through sexual selection into Scandinavia. As above, the theory assumes that men found women with blonde hair more attractive. That low levels of eumelanin be somehow associated with an Indo-European speaking population group in particular is questionable because of the time lines proposed for the mutation and as one of the places with the highest occurences of blond genes happens to be Finland, a country notable for a Uralic majority language.

In 2002, the disappearing blonde gene hoax cited the World Health Organization (WHO) as the source of a "scientific study" predicting blonds were eventually going to become extinct.

Geographic distribution

Light hair map of modern Europe and surroundings. Yellow: >80%, light orange: 50-79%, light brown: 20-49%, dark brown: 1-19%.

Blond Pacific Islander Boy

Blond hair is at the highest frequency among the indigenous peoples of Northern Europe. Blond and light hair constitute the majority in the populations of Germany, Scandinavia, Holland, Poland and Belarus as well as the Baltic states, parts of England and Russia. Due to vast movements of peoples from the 16th to the 20th centuries, blonds are also found in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Generally, blond hair in Europeans is associated with paler eye color (gray, blue, and green) and pale (sometimes freckled) skin tone. Strong sunlight also lightens hair of any pigmentation, to varying degrees, and causes many blond people to freckle, especially during childhood. High frequencies of natural blond hair in Northern latitudes can be viewed as an adaptation to the environment. Indeed, lighter skin, hair, and eye is due to a low concentration in pigmentation, thus letting more sunlight in which triggers the production of Vitamin D and other light-dependent reactions. In northern latitudes, sunlight is rare. Therefore a lighter skin is essential for survival.

In Central, Western Asia (Western Middle East) and South Asia there is a very low frequency of natural blonds found among some ethnic populations, probably of European ancestry due to migrations or interbreeding. In Afghanistan blonds are also found in the Pashtuns and Nuristani people (up to one third of the Nuristani). Blonds are also found in Turkey (especially in northern (Caucasus) and western (European) parts of the country), northern and western parts Iran (amongst the Lurs, Kurds, Gilakis, Persians, and Azeris). The Levant (Israel (especially among the Ashkenazim, who are of European origin), western Syria, Palestine and Lebanon) have a low frequency of blonds as well. Blond hair is also common among the Berbers of North Africa.

Aboriginal Australians, especially in the west-central parts of the continent, have a fairly high instance of natural blond-to-brown hair, with as many as 90-100% of children having blond hair in some areas. The trait among Indigenous Australians is primarily associated with children and women and the hair turns more often to a darker brown color, rather than black, as they age. Blondness is also found in some other parts of the South Pacific such as the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Again there are higher incidences in children but here many adults too carry this indigenous blond mutation.

Some Berber Guanches populations, particularly the now extinct aboriginal population of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands of the African Atlantic coast, were said by 14th century Spanish explorers to exhibit blond hair and blue eyes. Blondness was also reported among South American Indians.

Relation to age

Blonde hair is common in Caucasian infants and children, so much so that the term "baby blonde" is often used for very light-colored hair. Babies may be born with blonde hair even among groups where adults rarely have blonde hair, although such natal hair usually falls out quickly. Blonde hair tends to turn darker with age, and many children born blonde turn light, medium, or dark brunette before or during their teenage years.

Culturally related ideas

A depiction of the god Loki cutting the goddess Sif's famously golden locks (1920) by Willy Pogany.

In Norse mythology, both the goddess Sif (wife of Thor) and the major goddess Freyja are described as blonde. In the Poetic Edda poem Rígsþula, the blonde man Jarl was considered to be the ancestor of the dominant warrior class. In Northern European folklore, fairies value blonde hair in humans. Blonde babies are more likely to be stolen and replaced with changelings, and young blonde women are more likely to be lured away to the land of the fairies.

In European fairy tales, blonde hair was commonly ascribed to the heroes and heroines. This may occur in the text, as in Madame d'Aulnoy's La Belle aux cheveux d'or or The Story of Pretty Goldilocks (The Beauty with Golden Hair), or in illustrations depicting the scenes. One notable exception is Snow White who, because of her mother's wish for a child "as red as blood, as white as snow, as black as ebony," has dark hair. This tendency appears also in more formal literature; in Milton's poem Paradise Lost the noble and innocent Adam and Eve have "golden tresses", while near the end of J. R. R. Tolkien's work The Lord of the Rings, the especially favourable year following the War of the Ring was signified in the Shire by an exceptional number of blonde-haired children.

Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

In the early-mid 20th century, Nordicists such as Madison Grant and Alfred Rosenberg associated blonde hair with a Nordic race, which they distinguished from a larger Aryan race that included what they called the non-blonde Alpine race. During World War II, blonde hair was one of the traits used by Nazis to select Slavic children for Germanization.

In contemporary popular culture, it is often stereotyped that men find blonde women more attractive than women with other hair colors. Alfred Hitchcock preferred to cast blonde women for major roles in his films as he believed that the audience would suspect them the least, hence the term "Hitchcock blonde". Blonde jokes are a class of derogatory jokes based on a "dumb blonde" stereotype of blonde women being unintelligent, sexually promiscuous, or both. In other parts of modern culture, blonde women are often portrayed as "promiscuous", leading to the stereotype that blondes "have more fun." Jean Harlow (a natural ash blonde) and Marilyn Monroe (pale blonde as a child though her hair darkened to auburn) were notable bleached blonde sex icons of 20th century America, frequently portraying the stereotypical dumb blonde in their films.

See also

• Blond Eskimos
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

External links

• Why Does the Pool Turn Blonde Hair Green?