The Most Common Hair Color Isn't Blonde

Regardless of which is the most common, all hair colors are beautiful. pixdeluxe / Getty Images

A massive crossover of cultures and ethnicities often increases genetic variability as children inherit dominant traits from their parents. Each facial feature, skin color, and trait tells a story of people's origins.

Take hair color, for example: Different hair shades are prominent in specific regions. What may be the most common hair color in one area may be extremely rare in another part of the world.

The following list ranks the most common hair colors worldwide and where these genetic variations are most commonly found:

1. Black Hair

Black hair is the most common hair color in Africa, Asia and Europe between France's northern border and the Baltic States' southern border. The American population mirrors this variability since many citizens migrated from these areas.

2. Dark Brown Hair

Brown hair is another common color on the dark hair spectrum, present in people with lower levels of pheomelanin. Women with this hair color are commonly called brunettes. Most of the area comprising Central Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa is considered a dark-haired region.

3. Light Brown Hair

Like strawberry blonde and chestnut hair colors, this category is common in regions where light and dark hair colors have been mixed for generations.

4. Auburn Hair

Similar to other hair colors between black and blonde, auburn hair is a unique mix of more common brown hair with a splash of the red hair gene. Auburn hair colour is more common in Western Europe, but some cases still exist in Central Asia and Northern Africa.

5. Blonde (blond) Hair

People with an authentic blonde hair color (translation: not bleached or dyed) typically descend from Northern Europeans, especially in Scandinavian and Slavic states. Exclusively blonde hair (platinum blonde or ash blonde) and blue eyes are relatively common for people in these regions.

In contrast, many blondes you see in public may use hair dye and other cosmetic procedures to mimic this recessive gene.

6. Red Hair

Redheads present the highest percentage of pheomelanin, most originating from the Scottish Isles in Great Britain. Other red-haired people may have genetic lineages from the Southern border of Europe or remote regions of Central Asia.

7. White or Gray Hair

Naturally white hair (brighter even than platinum blond) is the rarest hair color. Although people will eventually produce white or gray hair as they age, some grow hair devoid of pigment. This rare occurrence can be the result of albinism or other genetic variances.

How Does Hair Color Work?

Hair color is defined by the blend of melanin in hair follicles, which is divided further into two subcategories: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Typically, darker-haired people have dominant ratios of eumelanin (black or brown) over pheomelanin (yellow or red).

Someone's original color will naturally fall somewhere between platinum blonde and raven-black hair, with many variations in between. A wide array of commonly found hair colors are illustrated in the Fischer-Saller scale, which is used frequently in anthropological research.