BEAUTY IS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

BEAUTY IS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP

What Science Says About Human

Colour

Most people think that the difference between a blonde and brunette is not much more than the difference between two cars of the same model, but with different coats of paint. Science now says this is all wrong, says a writer in “Tit Bits.” A brunette remains a brunette no matter how much she bleaches. And a blonde is still a blonde despite all darkening dyes. True blondes are blondes all the way through every cell of their bodies—their blood, their muscles, their nerves and even their minds. And the same is true of brunettes.

It is probable that redheads represent a third and different group. Maybe all three are as different from each other as distinct human races, which.

indeed, may be just what the original blondes, brunettes and redheads were before they got mixed by heredity.

Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but

Mother Nautre doesn't. Blondes and redheads have more skin troubles than brunettes. Also, they are more susceptible to germs infecting the throat, nose and lungs. They “catch cold” more ehsily and oftener titan the brunettes. But dark children suffer the greater damage from infantile paralysis, ami brunettes are more apt to get inflammatory rheumatism.

Criminologists deglare that blonde women in emotional stress are likely to kill their lovers or anyone else for their rage or sorrow. Brunette women prefer killing themselves to solve their problems. Blondes < are called cold, unemotional, ami calculating: brunettes, excitable and generous, but often sad: redheads, fiery and prone to anger.

A blonde averages 150,000 separate hail's on her head; a brunette between SO.OOO and 130,000. But a typical redheaded girl seldom has more than 50.000 separate hairs, and may have as few as 25.000. This doesn’t imply any kind of baldness. The head of red hair will look just as thick and luxuriant as the others. Its smaller number of hairs is because they are coarser than fair, brown or black ones. To sprout 150.000 red hairs the redhead’s scalp would have to have six times the normal acreage. Blondes’ skins are not really white, nor brunettes’ skins brown. They contain substantial quantities of red, yellow, green, violet and blue. There is less yellow, however, than any other colour, and more of green or blue-green in blondes than brunettes. A blonde can literally turn green with envy because when the blooj 1 leaves the cheeks! under conditions of sudden emotion or nausea the green shows up.

Close observers have long insisted upon the mental difference between typical blondes, brunettes and redheads. nuc the facts about the complete difference in purely physical matters, things like blood composition and susceptibilitv to diseases, are jr.st beginning to be discovered. One- of the most remarkable instances of the relation between complexion and disease is pointed out tty Dr. George Draper, in connection with epidemics of infantile paralysis. This disease seems to avoid pronounced blondes, ami to seek out for Its greatest damage children with dark hair, dark-coloured skins, and certain other bodily signs which Dr. Draper also noticed,' such as slightly slanted eyes and irregular teeth.

Skins of different human races differ from each other in two separate ways, thickness and the amount of pigment. Pure white skins are thin ones and also lack the dark pigment. Pure negro skins also are thin, but have a great deal of pigment that darkens them. Chinese and Japanese skins have little pigment, but differ from the white skins in being thicker, so that a yellowish tint appears. Fair skins differ from dark in thickness and in this ability to make pigment. There even are some blondes whose skins will not tan on long exposure to sunlight, but merely get red and sunburnt. ■ These skins lack altogether the ability to produce the pigment that makes dark skins darker or negro skins entirely black. Between true blondes and brunettes the chief difference in the hair is the same as in the skins. Blonde hair cells in rhe scalp cannot make, or at least do not make, the pigment granules that make a hair black or dark brown, just as the fair skins do not make the corresponding skin pigment. There ..exists, also, a parallel difference in hair thickness.- Just as the skins of blondes usually are thinner than those of brunettes. so blonde hair tends to be smaller in diameter. But the colour of typical red hair is

not caused by pigment granules in the hair, as is true of br.own and black hair. Instead, the whole substance of the tiny tube that forms the hair is tinted red by a transparent pigment The average hair tube also are thicker. Accordingly, this red pigment tends to show. This also is why red hair often seems transparent in sunlight or other intense light, and its flaming character is accentuated.

Some biologists suspect the red-head-ed character of being the mark of a separate racial group. There seem to be three racial types so far as hair characters are concerned. Probably the most primitive in evolution is the brunette type.

The typical white races have thin skins with little pigment, like the blonde hairs. The typical negroes have thin skins with much pigment, like the hairs of the brunettes. The typical redheads have thick hairs tinted red. but with few pigment granules, like the thick, yellowish or reddish skins of the Chinese and Japanese. No one imagines that these similarities mean that brunettes are descended from negroes, or redheaded people from the yellow races. What is likely is that there are different tendencies in the’ whole human race so far as skin and hair are concerned, one having to do with skin thickness, the other with pigment. Thin skins with little pigment make the typical whites, and in the extreme condition the blondes. Thin skins with more pigment make the brunettes and still darker racial groups. Thick skins or hairs characterise both the redheaded people and some of the Asiatics. Because of the racial mixtures that have been, occurring for centuries throughout the white race, there probably are no individuals now alive who are either pure blonde, pure brunette or pure redhead. , This is shown, for example, by the faet that skin colour and hair colour do not always go together. Some persons with fair or red hair have relatively dark skins, while some with dark hair havp extremely white skins.