Blonde Hair

I have been fascinated by blonde (well actually red more than yellow) hair for decades now. While I tend to stare stupidly at a blonde person, I don't like it when people dye their hair blonde or red or whatever. And I was irritated with myself that I couldn't find out whether the hair color was natural or dyed.

A friend explained the secret to me. Look at the eyebrows. Eyebrow color (in the case of men look at the hair in the hand or legs), should match the color of hair. 

The other day I was talking to a friend who had sent me a lovely video of 2 children performing. But I saw too many women having blonde hair and it seemed unnatural to me. 

Then I started to dig deeper into blonde hair. Of course we all know Scandinavians usually (apparently more than three fourths) have blonde hair. Blonde hair also seems very common in the northern parts of England. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy while the Balkan nations have a much lower incidence (less than 20%) of blonde hair. Between 20 and 50% people in the rest of Europe have blonde hair. The friend, who sent me the video, explained this to me though not with the percentage figures. 

Here is a very good visual picture of prevalence of blonde hair in Europe. http://bigthink.com/ideas/21266. What is surprising is that people in North Africa, Asia and the Kalash tribe in Pakistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond - see picture of blonde Berber man from North Africa and of Kurdish children,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rashidctl/3474061080/in/faves-45816934@N07/, http://s720.photobucket.com/albums/ww205/haas_bucket/?action=view&current=448517003_aaec024435_b.jpg the last two pictures show children from Kalash tribe I think) and apparently some Kashmiris (Indian) also have blonde hair though in smaller proportions.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1917348/posts - see the Kashmiri blonde kid. Never knew this! 

Today I read an article about Russian (and Ukrainian) women resorting to selling their blonde hair due to economic conditions there. There seems to be a big market for blonde hair. Apparently a 16 inch (40cm) length of blonde hair fetches $50.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/business/global/22blond.html?_r=1. 

White people are normally referred to as Caucasians. And the Caucasus region is in Russia, Georgia to be more precise. And these mountains are apparently at the border of Europe and Asia. Wonder why the term Caucasian has been used to denote people with white skin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Mountains
And all that I knew till now was that you could either be naturally blonde or bright. Whew.