may 2015 gingerlove.com Paris
a magazine dedicated to the most beautiful heart-thief color of nature!
ED SHEERAN
his album ÂŤXÂť
our international day to be loved!
Kiss a Ginger Day
Gingers throughout History the good, the bad and the red
our origin and future:
are we going extinct?
LIFESTYLE This second issue of GINGER LOVE is somehow a second birth to the magazine. The sections remain the same, of course. With the ‘on the List’ section, our lovely readers can look at natural redhead celebrities this time; no fake gingers to steal of podiums anymore. After several letters from our magazine fans (thanks you so much for your kind words, ladies!), this edition offers an Interview of rising star Ed Sheeran, the ginger singer with a honey voice. You will find a heart-stealing photography of the artist and the interview in the section you all love so much, ‘the Zoom.’ GINGER LOVE did not forget about the ladies and gentlemen who love celebrating ourselves, but it is the rest of the world’s turn to celebrate it during Kiss a Ginger Day... I am counting the days! You will find the descriptive of the date in ‘Freakishly Red.’ Meanwhile, if you need to get some reminders on how unique and awesome are all are, dear readers, jump to the last section ‘on the Web’! It is amazing, and it is for you only. ‘On the Web’ contains the pages of GINGER LOVE’s rebirth: this time, we tell you about some real concern. We let you know what you need to know. This second issue is only the beginning of our path, ladies and gentleman. Being a redhead girl used to be hard, because of the jealousy that could exist around us. Our fire was envied... But once I entered adulthood, perspective made me undertand that the envy, shown through aggressive behavior and words sometimes, was just a kid’s game. I am now a redhead women, and the envy has turned into admiration. Let’s use this, let’s abuse this. GINGER LOVE will tell you better than anyone: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. We are redheads, and we are on fire! Marianne HECART
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images: personal collection
Contents 4
Gingers through History BUBBLE! -did you know?
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SAVE THE DATE -Kiss a Ginger Day!
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Ed Sheeran
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discovery of the month are we going extinct? BUBBLE! -the (not) funny joke 5 reasons why being a Redhead is Awesome
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Gingers throughout History the good the bad and the red
Elizabeth Ist queen, redhead, badass!
We are rare, but we marked History!
BUBBLE!
did you know?
Beind a redhead was not a real reason to be accused of witchcraft in Salem! You could be suspected for the following reasons: 1. You are female 2. You are middle-aged 3. A relative of yours is suspected of witchcraft 4. You are Puritan 5. You have a husband but no child 6. You have a bad reputation 7. You commited little crimes 8. You have a low social position 9. You are accused by a confessed ‘witch’ text: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marilynne-k-roach/9-reasons-you-might-have-_b_4029745.html
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Lucille Ball
Actress, Comedienne, Icon If we could only have one ginger throughout history, it should be Lucille Ball. Not only was she a comedic genius, but she helped pave the way for women in entertainment. Besides being fabulous, funny and smart -- she was beautiful. Go ahead, say it, «I LOVE LUCY!»
Winston Churchill
Britain’s Greatest Wartime Leader and PM Would the British be speaking German had Winston Churchill not lead this embattled nation through WWII? Who knows, but there’s little doubt he is one of the most revered leaders in the Western world EVER. And best of all, he was copperhead!
Mary Magdalene Jesus’ Biggest Fan
Behind every great man, is a great woman, and that woman was Mary Magdalene for Jesus! While we don’t have any pictures of Mary, it is believed she had red hair, red hair she apparently used to wash Jesus’ feet with, thus making her the grandmother of foot fetishists around the world.
Thomas Jefferson
Founding father, 3rd President, Author of the Declaration of Independence A tremendous writer who could speak five languages and was erudite on a vast number of subjects, Jefferson was and is one of our greatest leaders. When he wasn’t busy getting busy with slave/ mistress Sally Hemmings, he was serving as HBIC of the hot ginge club! Ginger Love -
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Margaret Thatcher
The Iron Ginge
Margaret Thatcher, a strong head of state, delivered this great quote, (which secretly is about gingers): «Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.»
Prince Harry
The Spare Apparent, Soldier, Professional HOT GINGE! Handsome, rugged, brave, fun-loving and a bit on the wild side, Prince Harry is the world’s most eligible bachelor and only a fool wouldn’t want to run their fingers through his glorious ginger mane. Prince Harry is bringing the sexy, and its red all over.
Tina Louise
Ginger, Our Favorite Ginger Gilligan’s Island would have been a hollow shell of itself without the smoldering hotness that was Ginger. Tina Louise camped up her role as the castaway/ movie star and had the Skipper, Gilligan and the Professor fumbling over each other for her attention.
Conan O’Brien
Late Night Talk Show Host, Comedian It’s Team Coco all the way baby! Conan O’Brien has dug his way out of the late night trenches and into our hearts. He’s embraced his ginger-ness and brought pride to those who wear their freckles. Conan... thank you for carrying the «flame» for us all! 6
- Ginger Love
Lindsay Lohan
Freckled Menace, Firecrotch Lindsay Lohan has turned her back on her own kind! Perhaps it was the 2006 «fire-crotch» incident which turned her, but whatever the case, it’s been downhill for Lindsay since. Thank goodness she’s bleached the beauteous red from her DNA, as we want no association with this traitor!
Rupert Grint
Ron Weasley, Harry Potter’s Ginger BFF Rupert Grint’s portrayal of Ron Weasley in the uber popular Harry Potter films has done more to rehabilitate the reputation of modern ginger men than any other character. It is safe to be male ginger once again. A round of butterbeer for everyone!
Julie Gardland Dorothy 4-ever!
The technicolor was the most widely used color process in Hollywood between 1922 and 1952... It did not take long until somebody used that to show how beautiful ginge babes are in high color, on the big screen. Oh yeah, we are on fire... images: Google Images text: http://www.themortonreport.com/galleries/discoveries gingers-through-history-the-good-bad-and-the-red/
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SAVE THE DATE Kiss a Ginger
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January
for Day!
January 12th is (semi-)officially International Kiss A Ginger Day, which means every ginger person you come across on this day you must grab and plant a loving kiss onto immediately. Kiss A Ginger Day was started in 2009 by Derek Forgie as a Facebook group intended as a “karmic counter-event� to the November 2008 creation of a Kick A Ginger campaign, also on Facebook. The latter resulted in numerous ginger kids being assaulted at school, stirring international outrage and condemnation. In response, Derek decided to dedicate January 12th to a much more peace-loving activity aimed towards gingers. Now in its 6th year, we obviously firmly support Kiss A Ginger Day and encourage anybody reading this to go forth and spread some ginger love. For more information about Kiss A Ginger Day, visit the original Facebook page. Then go out and kiss some gingers!
12th
images: Google Images (left) and personal collection (top right) text: http://hotforginger.com/blog/international-kiss-a-ginger-day/
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image: Forever Amber
Products for Redheads Revlon 2-in-1 Shampoo and Conditioner for Red Hair 10
- Ginger Love
image: Google images
Ed Sheeran, X
Ed Sheeran, « I am a acoustic balladeer who sings soppy love songs to teenage girls » d Sheeran released his new album. The singer-songwriter had, after some stops and starts and revisions, completed the record in March. The album was entitled X. First, though, the head of his record label takes to the small stage to fluff up the small gathering of music industry and media figures. Without further ado, on bounds Sheeran. He’s as Tigger-ish cheerful as his reputation suggests. But he’s clearly a little apprehensive, ruffling his hair and gripping his upper-arms; this album has been a long time in the making, and the remaking.
Justin Timberlake. Which is not so surprising when you remember that Sheeran – a prolific writer for both himself and other artists – has written for the mega-selling boy band, and when you learn that Sing is a collaboration with onetime Timberlake producer Pharrell Williams. Then he plays Don’t, which at this point is scheduled to be the second single. It’s a song born of frustration, recounting in bald, sweary and very specific detail his brief sexual relationship with another A-list artist, and her subsequently betraying him with another pop star. “I’m gonna get some angry emails after it,” he says with a rueful chuckle. Next up: Afire Love. It’s about his grandfather, an Irish Catholic who suffered from Alzheimer’s for 20 years before finally dying last year. Sheeran finished writing looking the song at the funeral.
The 23-year-old from Suffolk introduces the selection of songs one by one. First out of the studio’s giant speakers is the « People softly strummed ballad One, at this cuddly, written in his dressing room while on tour in Australia. It’s tow-headed gin- Then, picking up his guitar, the “last song about the person Sheeran performs a couple ger and going who was on the first album,” he of songs, beginning with I’m “awwww… ” » says. One, he thinks, is a good A Mess. It was “written in the way to end both that period and that rela- shower”. Like Thinking Out Loud, it’s about his tionship. new girlfriend of four months, Athina Andrelos, who works for Jamie Oliver. He sings with Then there’s Sing, the first single. It’s “quite his eyes closed and while rapping out a beat different”, which is something of an unders- withhis knuckles on the body of his guitar. tatement. It sounds like One Direction meets
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And finally he plays Photograph. It’s his “col- everyone’s keen to talk about him. So lateral” song. “If the rest of the album is s___, yeah, I get that. Also, Rick Rubin.” As well we can sell it on this one,” he says. It’s a typical as the Happy/Get Lucky singer, X features Sheeran statement: a touch of swagger, but Rubin, the eminent American producer shrouded with humility. It’s a winning combi- of everyone from Beastie Boys to Adele. nation. His self-confidence is just « I See Fire beats “Those are the two main enough to have people looking themes. That, and what else both Pharrell’s at this cuddly, tow-headed ginger Despicable Me 2 I’ve been up to.” and going “awwww…” song Happy and On the horizon: intensely Finally, he presses “play” once Let It Go from the busy promotional trips to the more on Sing. “I’m gonna leave all-conquering Fro- US, Europe, Australia and zen on Spotify. » New Zealand. A young man you with the single again, just in case you forget it…” with a savvy understanding of his social media metrics and a keen Job done. Now Sheeran pops down from stage eye for his international status, Sheeran for a chat. He tells me that Benedict Cumber- says that continental Europe has finally batch will be starring in the video for Sing, doing caught up with his impassioned fanbase some hip hop dancing. The singer coolly works elsewhere in the world. He ascribes it to the room, indulging in smiley table-hopping. I See Fire, the song he wrote for the end credits of the second Hobbit film. Spotify It’s a conversational skill that he honed in almost said it was the service’s most streamed three years slogging round the bottom rungs film soundtrack song of 2013/14, beating of the British acoustic gig circuit. He then per- both Pharrell’s Despicable Me 2 song fected it when he supported Taylor Swift – for Happy and Let It Go from the all-conquewhom he’s also co-written a song – on 58 Ame- ring Frozen. rican arena dates last year. Having also played images: Google images three sell-out shows at New York’s 18,200-capatext: Craig McLean city Madison Square Garden, this year Ed Sheehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/10859780/Ed-Sheeran-interview-I-dont-makeran does his own British arena tour. Not bad for music-for-critics.html one kid and his guitar.
Nine days later I meet Sheeran again. He’s been bunkered in a central London all day, doing eight or so hours of international press: Japan, Australia, “all of Europe”. I’m his last engagement of the day. What, I ask, are the dominant themes that emerged during those interviews? “How the Pharrell collaboration came about,” is his instant reply. “That was the key one. I just think that because everything he touches now turns to gold,
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quick! easy! fun!
SUNSCREEN BANDS 1 Apply sunsceen and turn the band on 2 Purple means reapply sunsceen 3 Yellow means it’s time to go! 14
- Ginger Love
discovery of the month Forever Amber .co.uk
« Hello, I’m Amber, and I’m a journalist-turned-blogger working solely to support an expensive shoe habit. I also like holidays in Florida, 50s-inspired dresses, big hair and ghost stories. Oh, and wine. I live in central Scotland with my husband, Terry, a small white wolf called Rubin, 109 pairs of shoes (and counting), and far too many dresses. Forever Amber is my attempt to tell the story of my life, from the clothes I wear to the places I go and the things I do. »
FASHION BEAUTY LIFE ADVENTURES BLOGGING
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Is the legend true?
are we going extinct?
Relax, redheads. We’re not about to die out. edheads, rest easy: your chances of climate change-induced extinction are identical to those of people with less exhilarating hair colour. This seemingly obvious fact will no doubt drown in the current deluge of coverage declaring that gingers are genetically doomed. The source? A company that sells genetic ancestry testing. Let’s deal with the science. Red hair is caused by changes in a single gene, and exists in the overall population at about 4-5%, making it beautifully rare. Its increased prevalence in
Scots (and the Welsh and English, and other northern European populations) is probably due to a degree of isolation in an ancestral group at some point in our ancient history. The gene is recessive, which means that both parents have to pass it on for their child to be red-haired. Various reports quote a scientist «who did not wish to be named» saying «I think the regressive gene is slowly dying out». I’ve studied and written about genetics for 20 years now, and I’ve not come across «regressive» genes before. I’m willing to give this mystery scientist leeway that this was an error by the journalist, and the enigmatic-but-no- doubt-very-credible researcher
But hey, where does the gene come from?
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Scientists believe that the “ginger gene,” or “V6OL allele,” showed up 50,000 years ago after humans left Africa for colder climates. This gene made human’s skin lighter, as they were exposed to less vitamin D from the sun.
In total there are 20 million people in the United Kingdom and Ireland with the gene that can cause red hair and this new study shows that this remains a dominant gene in southern Europeans today...
The scientists made this discovery having studied the gene evolution of 1,000 people from Spain. Ten percent of Irish people have red hair.
However, this paler skin also brought health risks, such as melanoma, the deadliest form of cancer, but the study’s author Doctor Saioa Lopez
- Ginger Love
image: personal collection
meant «recessive». The question of whether humans are still evolving crops up every now and then. Our genes change over time, and the frequency of those genes in populations changes too. The change is slow, and we have largely unshackled ourselves from the forces of natural selection.
the gene would too. As someone who finds red hair rather attractive, should this come to pass, I will volunteer to help them out of their imaginary celibate rut. Sadly, unless some Eric Cartmanesque genocide transpires, I am supremely confident that my services will not be required.
In this particular case, it is very hard to think of Now, if this were a hair commercial, I would a way that the ginger gene might be extinmove on by saying «that was the science guished. The selective pressure Here’s how the ginger bit». In fact, this whole teasserted in this tale is that reddious saga is just an adgene could vanish: heads exist as an adaptation vertisement – and science to cloudy weather in Scotland. not only would every by press release. Finding Alas, there is scant evidence for redhead have to stop out your redhead genetic having sex for some status is merely a £25 addthat – scientists are still debating if the red-hair gene or, indeed, reason, but every car- on to one of the genetic any of the genes that affect rier of the gene would ancestry packages from skin, hair and eye colour, spread Scotlands DNA. The comtoo. because of a lack of sunlight, or pany’s chief executive, because of some sort of mate preference, or Alistair Moffat, is the source of this latest just by off chance. Nor am I aware of any eviseptic wave of genetic astrology. Moffat dence that Scotland is getting less cloudy as a is the rector of St Andrews University. I can result of climate change. To become extinct, find no evidence that he has any qualifiginger hair would have to be a powerfully macations in genetics, though this has not deladaptive condition, which of course it is not. terred him from frequent assertions about It’s a very lovely condition. the subject. In 2012, Moffat appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme making Here’s how the ginger gene could vanish: not some unsupported claims concerning the only would every redhead have to stop haancestry of some Brits being Tuareg, Berber and ving sex for some reason, but every carrier of even the Queen of Sheba. Geneticists David
says this is not necessarily due to the redhead gene itself. He told the Daily Mail, “As a consequence of depigmentation there has been a collateral damage consequence to health. “This can be reconciled if we assume that melanoma is typically a post-reproductive disease, and consequently should have little effect on the individual’s genetic contribution to the next generation.” The recent study follows on the results of a ScotlandsDNA project in 2012 which found that the Celts
flaming red hair can be put down to the weather. The experts believe that the gloomy climate in Scotland has seen a deliberate genetic adaptation. Essentially this means that red hair helps to take advantage of sunny days and allows the body to absorb more vitamin D.
text: http://www.irishcentral.com /news/scientists-confirm-redhead-gene-evolved-due-to-lackof-sunlight-224444281-237778201.html
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Balding and Mark Thomas from University College London issued complaints to the BBC, to the company’s chief scientist, Jim Wilson from Edinburgh University, and a detailed letter to Moffat pointing out the multiple fallacies in his claims. Following the complaints, Moffat wrote to the then provost of UCL, Malcolm Grant, demanding that he force Balding and Thomas to back off. Grant told him that he would do well to respect academic freedom – a polite scholarly way of telling him to sod off. Legal threats were issued and the whole sorry saga is documented in necessary detail on the UCL website.
simple and clean, but alas humans are not. We are messy, and our DNA is almost inscrutable. Genetics is complex, and anyone who tells you different is selling something. I will be plugging my own book on the stories we can and can’t tell about human genetics in a year’s time. There is so much joy and wonder in science, in the poetry locked in our genomes. Its publication is now put off by one day, as today I chose to write not about the marvel of DNA, but to prick this bubble of flapdoodle. image: Martin Godwin text: Adam Rutherford http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/10/redheads-die-out-extinction-ginger-gene-bad-science-red-hair
Last year, following a press release from Moffat’s sister company, BritainsDNA, many newspapers devoted chunky column inches to the revelation that Prince William carries Indian DNA. It took a genetic genealogist – Debbie Kennett, an honorary fellow at UCL – to thoroughly debunk this wobbly piece of scientific trivia. These promises of DNA and ancestry are everywhere. They are seductive because they are
BUBBLE!
the (not) funny joke
Redhead sisters, how many time have you heard that? « So, I’ve always wanted to know...
Does the carpet match the drapes? » 18
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we’re awesome... here’s some more reasons why!
5 reasons why being a Redhead is Awesome 1. Only 2% of the world’s population has red hair. So you’re a majestic unicorn, basically 2. You’ll never get lost in a crowd, because your hair is like a mighty red beacon of hope 3. If you dye your hair, red is the hardest shade to maintain, which means no one can REALLY ever fake your color 4. Red hair is a recessive gene, so if you have a redhead child, it means you’ve won the damn genetic lottery 5. Mark Twain, also a ginger, compared us to the best animals ever: (Sorry, dog lovers, but cats are for the win here) image: buzzfeed text: Erin La Rosa http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/reasonswhy-being-a-redhead-is-awesome#.ajX41O22vA
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Thinking about Halloween 2015?
Dorothy costume available on !
image: Forever Amber