Pricing note

Hair color

Rarity, preference, and the old question about blondes having more fun.

Hair color is one of the first physical traits people notice. The quiz gives the largest bonus to blonde hair on both tracks, adds a smaller female-track bonus for red hair, and treats early gray hair as a penalty.

Score: blonde hair adds $20,000 on the male track or $50,000 on the female track. Brown and black add $10,000. Red ranges from −$30,000 to +$20,000, while gray hair before 40 subtracts $20,000 or $40,000.

Hair facts

  • A head has roughly 100,000 hairs, although the count varies with hair color and the individual.
  • The maximum length of an individual hair is commonly around 70–90 centimeters, although the growth cycle varies greatly.
  • Scalp hair commonly grows about 12 centimeters per year and can remain in its growth cycle for two to seven years.
  • Female scalp hair has sometimes been reported to grow more slowly, while male hair can be denser; hormones, age, and ancestry matter more than the simple sex comparison.
  • A single healthy strand can support roughly 100 grams under laboratory conditions—about the weight of a chocolate bar.
  • Combing generally causes less mechanical damage than aggressive brushing.
  • Frequent washing does not itself cause hair loss, and cutting hair does not change how fast it grows.
  • Hair tends to grow a little faster in warm weather.
  • Split ends cannot be permanently repaired; the damaged ends have to be cut.
  • Red is the rarest natural human hair color. Redheads have often been estimated at around 90,000 scalp hairs, versus roughly 110,000 for people with black hair, but strand thickness and individual variation matter.
  • Albinism can produce extremely pale yellow or nearly white hair because the body makes little or no melanin.

Do blondes really have more fun?

A study published as “The Influence of Hair Color on Eliciting Help: Do Blondes Have More Fun?” had two men and two women stop 144 pedestrians and ask for help. The researchers alternated blonde and brunette wigs for half of the interactions.

Women helped male and female requesters at similar rates. Men were more likely to help a woman than another man, but hair color did not change the response. The stereotype survived; this experiment did not support it.