Human Hair Color

Human Hair Color

Hair color is the pigmentation of hair follicles due to two types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Generally, if more eumelanin is present, the color of the hair is darker; if less eumelanin is present, the hair is lighter. Levels of melanin can vary over time causing a person's hair color to change, and it is possible to have hair follicles of more than one color.

Particular hair colors are associated with ethnic groups. The shades of human hair color are assessed using the Fischer–Saller scale. The Fischer–Saller scale, named after Eugen Fischer and Karl Saller, is used in physical anthropology and medicine to determine the shades of hair color. The scale uses the following designations: A (light blond), B to E (blond), F to L (blond), M to O (dark blond), P to T (brown), U to Y (dark brown/black) and Roman numerals I to IV (red) and V to VI (red blond). See also the Martin–Schultz scale for eye color.

Read more about Human Hair Color:  Genetics and Biochemistry of Hair Color, Natural Hair Colors, Hair Coloring

Famous quotes containing the words human, hair and/or color:

    Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    Her face is like the moon.
    Her mouth tastes like the drink of life.
    Her wild, hot kiss
    with a pull of her hair ...
    what’s THAT like?
    Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)

    Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead
    Again again with its pointless sound
    When the moon finds them they are the color of everything
    William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927)