The other day my blonde 2-year-old spent a long time studying a picture book featuring a dark-haired girl. Finally she sighed, longingly, and said, “She has such pretty curly brown hair.” And so it begins: the everywoman’s struggle with wanting the hair you don’t have, from the curly-headed woman’s hour-long morning battle with the straightening iron, to the redhead’s love affair with the black dye bottle.

Redheads face this problem with special intensity, the Daily Mail reported recently in their story on International Redhead Day, when  thousands congregate in Breda, Holland. Reporter Marianne Powers writes of communing with others who, like her, had felt embarrassed of their red hair and freckles, endured childhood taunts, or were victims of ginger-discrimination (in 2007 repeated abuse forced a redheaded Newcastle family from their home). The lighthearted festival offers a respite from anti-redhead sentiments, with weekend full of events like lectures on redhead-specific topics, movies starring redheads, and above all else, a chance for members of this minority (2% of the world's population, according to Powers) to bond with each other. Bart Rouwenhorst,the festival's founder, told Powers,"If you see one redhead it's beautiful. If you see this many, it's like a dream."

I feel like everyone I know wants a different kind of hair than the hair she actually has. Maybe you believed your frizzy, untamed hair was the one thing keeping you from eternal high school happiness, or that if only you had a sleek black bob you'd get more respect at work. Luckily, we have some choices. There are clever people at these places called salons who can let you experiment, to see, for example, whether or not blondes really do have more fun. Or you can just laugh about your follicle foibles (so I'm at heart forever mousey, oh well) and move on.  That's been my either wise or lazy strategy, but even a boring old brunette like me (how I longed for Jennie Garth’s long, straight blonde hair as a tween!) got a chill reading Powers’ words: “Weird though the weekend has been, it has healed a little wound I didn’t even realise I had. For the first time ever I don’t just accept my hair, I love it.”

We can tell ourselves "it's just hair" all we want, but Powers' realization sparked a realization of my own: disliking even a small part of yourself can create "a little wound." Why not go ahead and love your hair?

Read More:
What Oprah knows about loving yourself the way you are. 

How to make peace with your self-image.

A new way to see yourself.
Skewed self-image starts early.