Black hair

This article is about hair that is black in color. For information regarding hair that is the texture of unprocessed African hair, see Afro-textured hair.

A woman with black hair

Northern Irish footballer George Best with black hair

Black hair is the darkest and most common of all human hair colors globally. It is a dominant genetic trait, and it is found in people of all backgrounds and ethnicities. It has large amounts of eumelanin and is less dense than other hair colors. Sometimes very dark brown (blackish-brown) hair is mistaken for black. In English, black hair is sometimes described as "soft-black", "raven black", or "jet-black". The range of skin colors associated with black hair is vast, ranging from the palest of light skin tones to dark skin. Black-haired humans can have dark or light eyes. Natural black hair does not truly exist. It is actually a shade of dark brown. This is also true for the fur on animals such as the black bear and leopard.

Distribution

This is likely the original hair color of Homo sapiens, and is found in its greatest distribution in Africa, Asia, and the pre-Columbian Americas. Black hair is also particularly common in people of Asia, Southern Europe, parts of South America and Africa regardless of ethnolinguistic affiliation. It is notably concentrated among Celtic peoples of Europe. For example, the Spanish, French, Portuguese, Irish, Welsh and Cornish are particularly noted for their straight to wavy hair, deep brown hair (that can be confused with black hair) and it can be combined with either dark (such as brown) or light (such as green, gray or blue) colored eyes. Irish people with these traits are sometimes known as the "Black Irish". Though this characteristic can be seen in people throughout the United Kingdom, it becomes more common in parts of Central, Southern and especially Eastern Europe.

Dark haired people, ranging from dark chestnut and deep brown to black, with either dark or light colored eyes, can also be seen among the Indo-European and non-Indo-European ethnic groups in Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and North India. Raven-Black hair is black hair with a blue tint; the coloration can range from navy blue to midnight blue, and is found in people of African, Latin American, South Asian and Southeast Asian descent. Off-Black hair is a dark grey hair coloration that can be confused with Jet Black hair, and is caused by a lower amount of Black Eumelanin. It is found in some people of Asian and Native American descent.

Gallery

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  Black hair

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  Chinese girl with black hair

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  A Circassian woman with black hair.

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  Indian actress (Deepika Padukone) with raven black hair

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  Khoisan woman with black hair

See also

• Human skin color
• Melanin
• Pigment
• Skin
• Moreno
• Hair color
• Hair dye
• Brown hair

External links

• Frost: Why Do Europeans Have So Many Hair and Eye Colors?
• Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics