Skin and hair reflectance in women with red hair

Abstract

Skin and hair reflectance were measured with the Photovolt Spectrophotometer in 33 young women with red hair. Four skin sites were measured: forehead, check, inner arm and shoulder. A subsample of 15 red-headed women were tested before and at the end of the summer to test for tanning effects. The study was designed to test for relationships between hair and skin colour by reflectance spectrophotometry. As expected, subjects generally had very pale skin colour, pronounced freckling and very little tanning ability. Eumelanin (brown-black) pigment, as estimated by reflectance at 650 nm, was minimal at all skin and hair sites. Hair and inner arm reflectance values were highly correlated at short wavelengths, suggesting phaeomelanin as the source of the relationship. Estimates of tanning ability by use of the R/G ratio were very low in this sample of redheads.