Red alert as motherand daughter go beyond pale

Fed up with being unable to find products that suited their hair and skin, redheads Jen Rose and her daughter Jess Shailes launched their own business. Catherine Scott reports.

Carrot top, ginger nut, fiery redhead... Jen Rose and her daughter Jess Shailes have heard them all.

The pair are natural redheads and are both proud of their stunning locks. But it hasn’t always been so.

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Both women were badly bullied at school and even though being a redhead is now seen as fashionable the bating doesn’t stop now they are adults.

People think that because you have red hair it is okay to make fun of you and say things,” says Jess, 27, from Goole.

“Just the other day I was at the petrol station and some men just shouted out ‘ginger’. It seems that it is socially acceptable to have a go at a redhead.

“ I love my hair now but as I was growing up there were many occasions when all I wanted was blonde or brown hair.”

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So fed up with the stereotyping of redheads and also the lack of products for them Jess and Jen have set up a business Everything for Red Heads and it is going from strength to strength.

“For years I had used the same shampoo which was designed to enhance red hair,” explains Jen, 57, from Rawcliffe.

“Then suddenly they stopped making it. I was furious as there just isn’t anything out there on the High Street for redheads. I must have been moaning about it over the dinner table with my husband and Jess and then one of them said why not do something about it.” And that’s exactly what they did. But Everything for Redheads is far more than just a place to buy shampoo.

“We wanted somewhere that people could go. If they were having problem sourcing a particularly product we will do our best to get it for them,” explains Jess.

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“Make up is particularly difficult as we have very pale skin and ordinary make up leaves us looking like clowns. I also have a real problem with my eyebrows being so pale. But more than that we wanted somewhere people with red hair or their families could go to share problems and be part of a community which until now they have not been able to do as people perceive them as different.”

Although Jen and Jess knew there was a need for their business in the UK where six per cent of the population has red hair they had no idea just how far the need spread.

“We have inquiries for products and help from America, Australia, New Zealand and even Japan.

“We know how difficult it is to find products here but for someone living in Japan it must be virtually impossible,” says Jen. “I had never thought about people living outside of the UK and that has really surprised me.”

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As well as products their website www.everythingforredheads.co.uk also looks at redheads throughout history and even anecdotes and jokes about ‘gingers’.

“You have to be able to see the funny side,” says Jen. “We wanted the site to be a celebration of all things redhead.”

Although she does admit that the bullying which many redheads suffer is no laughing matter.

“Things are better than when I was at school,” says Jen. “My dad was ginger and he celebrated when I was born with red hair and at infant school it was fine, but then when I got to junior and senior school it all changed. Schools weren’t geared up to deal with bullies as they are now, you just had to grin and bear it. People like to pick on someone who is different and my hair made me different, but at the end of the day you have to realise it is the bullies who are the sad ones.”

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Although Jess says having a mum with red hair helped she too suffered at the hands of bullies.

“It is very difficult when you are a little child but I do believe that the way you handle yourself defines whether you are likely to be bullied, if you act like a victim then you will become one.” Jess found it particularly hard as she hit adolescence.

“My friends were going out wearing make up and when I put it on I looked like a clown. Also they were going on holidays and getting a tan where I just burnt.

“It did help having mum as she stressed to me the importance of wearing sun block. But it is hard. I was on holiday with my sister who has brown hair and she sat in the sun all day and although she did burn it went brown almost immediately. I went out after 4pm with the sun going down and thought I had covered myself in sunblock but I had obviously missed places like under my arms and the top of my feet. When we got back to the hotel I was so badly burnt that I had to spend three days inside. It is hard for people to understand just how sensitive our skin is.”

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Jess says that a rash of high profile redheaded celebrities has helped.

“Nicola Roberts in particular has been really helpful. She has brought out a cosmetic range Dainty Doll which we stock,” says Jess.

“She went through the whole thing of trying to look like the other members of Girls Aloud with a fake tan, but then she realised it just didn’t suit her colouring and now she is celebrating the fact she has pale skin and red hair which is great.

“We are lucky that pale skin is becoming more fashionable and that people are realising that too much sun is not good for you.”

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In fact, an increasing number of women are actually dying their hair red.

Chrsitina Hendricks of Mad Men fame is one such example of someone who has decided to embrace flaming locks.

“I think it is a huge compliment,” says Jess. “And we are now offering products and advice to these women as they find as soon as they go red their make up and even clothing needs to change.” Clothing is one area Jen would like to explore in the future.

“It can be really hard getting clothes that go with your hair. I always tend to wear green or blue as I know they are safe colours for me and I never wear pinks and oranges.

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“But often people struggle to get clothes that suit them and also people who don’t have red hair struggle to buy things for people who have. That is where we come in.”

They also stock books which contain information and advice for people, especially parents, of children with red hair who just don’t know what it is like themselves. The actress Julianne Moore has written a book on bullying called Freckle Faced Strawberry, the name she was taunted with as a child

“It is a great book for helping children deal with being different.” Jess and Jen hope that their website will help change people’s perceptions of redheads but more than that give redheads a voice.

“We want people’s views,” says Jen. “Our mission is to create a website that gives redheads everything they want and we can’t do that unless people give us their views.”

www everythingfor redheads.co.uk

Quotes about redheads

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“There is more, much more, to being a redhead than the color of one’s hair.” – G Adam Stanislav, red-haired photographer.

“Redheads are like other women – only more so.” – Playboy magazine

“You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair, people who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is.” – Anne of Green Gables.

“My husband said he wanted to have a relationship with a redhead, so I dyed my hair.” – Jane Fonda.

“Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall in love with a gorgeous redhead.” – Lucille Ball.

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