"Red hair. Freckles. Pale skin. Soulless. What good are they? [...] [T]here’s no known advantage to ginger-ness, and plenty of disadvantages. [...] Eumelanin is a dark pigment [and] is also an excellent barrier to UV damage. Pheomelanin is a reddish-brown pigment. [...] Red hair is stuffed full of pheomelanin rather than eumelanin. But here’s the thing: pheomelanin is a lousy barrier to UV. In fact, pheomelanin is prone to photodamage (exposure to light causes it to break down) that produces carcinogenic byproducts. It’s also synthesized biochemically by a process that consumes glutathione (GSH), an important cellular anti-oxidant. So making red hair actually depletes the body of a protective substance, and has the side-effect of producing carcinogens. [...] You see the problem: WHY DO GINGERS EVEN EXIST? It just seems to be a bad thing all around." - Mark H from Bookmarklet

Beauty? - Todd Hoff