"The supposed blondness and paleness of Europeans is highly overrated". Discuss.

[Septentrion]

Except for the territories taken by the Nazis such as those of the invasion of Poland, Nazi-era Germany is exactly the same size as it is today,

Also, I don't think that at that time the Germans were much more Nordic than they are now.

Germany was larger in 1933 than it’s today. It was even larger in 1917. The Germans were not much more Nordic in race in those days than they are today. I agree. I was just saying that Germans are already in the majority light-haired, light-eyed, fair-skinned.

[Septentrion]

I thought golden blonde was something more like this

No it isn’t. That’s just light blonde. You know this dude ( Kurt Cobain ) has golden blond hair.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oY1SAi259...Cobain%2B5.jpg

[thatoneton]

When it comes to Northern Europe Scandinavia tends to have much more of the "Germanic" type light skinned/haired people wheres Poland has many more of the "dark blonde" people, though both have both. British Islands tend to have many more ginger haired people, who are much less common in Poland.
Also it is typical for hair to darken with age, so a blonde haired child will typically have brown hair in adulthood (sometimes even outright black), which also includes brows, and additionaly people's skin color easily changes depending on the season of the year and the time one spends outside.

Generally speaking there is a "striking" (from a European point of view) difference between the people from Southern and Northern Europe when it comes to hair/skin color/tone, to the point where some Poles could take a Spanish person for an Arab (though this happens only periodically).
Also even in Southern Europe - northern Italy, the Balkans, southern France - it wouldn't be shocking to see a lighter skinned/haired person. When it comes to Iberia, Caucasus, or Anatolia this happens much more rarely.

Overall typically blond haired adult people are certainly not in a majority almost nowhere in Northern Europe, neither in the British Islands, Low Countries, Poland nor the Baltics, and are slightly more common in Scandinavia and Finland. Some Russians from North-Western Russia tends to have more of the blondness as well, however typically Russians from other area are dark-haired.

Just for the record I have a pretty light skin and brown hair, if that matters at all.

[Roy]

Scandinavians are indeed very often blonde, including light shades of it but they tend to tan easily.

[Tooting Carmen]

Scandinavians are indeed very often blonde, including light shades of it but they tend to tan easily.

Yes but the whole point is that most of Europe is not like Scandinavia, and even Scandinavia itself is no more than 40-50% blonde (though many more have light brown hair, and very few there have dark brown or black hair).

[thatoneton]

Yes but the whole point is that most of Europe is not like Scandinavia, and even Scandinavia itself is no more than 40-50% blonde (though many more have light brown hair, and very few there have dark brown or black hair).

This is indeed the case, my guess is that this mostly stems from the fact that in much of the world such features are not present at all and because of this some people have started to use it as a point of reference of what is and what is not "typically European", which clearly does not reflect the reality that we have here in Europe.

In Poland we probably couldn't care less about the whole "blondness" problem, since we are generally speaking white enough so as to not be bothered by people using shade/color of skin/eyes/hair as a determining factor of "Europeanness" (with the obvious exception of the Nazi Germany during WW2 which clearly had its quirky ideas related to it and which led to much suffering on our part) and truth be told there never was any such a movement within Poland that would claim any similar nonsene.

On the other hand if one was to look at Europe as a whole one would easily find Poles being rather lightskinned and lighthaired relatively speaking. Clearly a person having much darker, "Southern European" type complexion would be taken for a foreigner right away in Poland, which would not necessarily happen with a Swede or a Norwegian.

However like you said even the Scandinavians are not really uniform in their complexion either and although a majority will have a ligher skin and hair it could just as well happen that a native Swede would be dark haired.

One other thing I wanted to point out is that also things like, for example, the type of shampoo one uses or whether someone uses hair dryer or not have an impact on what color will someone's hair be.

[Septentrion]

Yes but the whole point is that most of Europe is not like Scandinavia, and even Scandinavia itself is no more than 40-50% blonde (though many more have light brown hair, and very few there have dark brown or black hair).

No, it is rather 50 - 80% blond ( light to medium to dark shades ). You know Scandinavia has the highest rate of blond hair in Europe and the world. Although the most common blonde shade for example in Sweden is dirty blonde. While in Finland it is an ashen blonde type which is most common. The difference between Scandinavians is nevertheless pretty subtle. Contrary to the stereotype, only a small percentage of Scandinavian adults have platinum blond hair. Although it is common for kids to have it. Black hair is virtually inexistant or extremely rare among ethnic Scandinavians. Most of their darkest hair is either dark brown or very dark brown ( darkest brown ). In other words, the majority of Scandinavians have blond hair regardless of definition. While the overall most common hair color in Northern Europe outside of Scandinavia and Estonia is for the most part light or medium brown depending on the definition. Your 40 - 50% figure for blond ( including some lightest brown shades ) is more appropriate for parts of Northern Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Latvia, parts of Northern Belarus and Northern Poland, North - West Russia. Now if you included light brown and red to blond shades ( «*Fair Hair*» ), this would make about 80% for the ethnic Swedish population for example.

[Septentrion]

Scandinavians are indeed very often blonde, including light shades of it but they tend to tan easily.

Yes, very blond people with lovely tans in the summer months.. This is what makes their women very gorgeous - looking especially in their prime.