Natural red hair is rarer than you'd think. "Worldwide, it occurs in only 2 percent of the population," Jacky Colliss Harvey revealed in Red: A History of the Redhead, "although it is slightly more common (2 to 6 percent) in northern and western Europe, or in those with that ancestry."
As Harvey explained, red hair is recessive. "In the great genetic card game, the shuffling of the deck that has made us all, red hair is the two of clubs," she wrote. "It is trumped by every other card in the pack." In order to have a child with this hair color, both parents need to possess the gene.
In the United States, it may not seem like red hair is all that unusual. However, that may be because a disproportionate amount of redheads are featured in American advertisements. While redheads only make up a tiny part of the population, one study (via HuffPost) found that 30 percent of ads feature the hair color. Plus, when you factor in people who've dyed their hair red, you can see how we've all been bamboozled into thinking this rare body feature is commonplace.
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