Brunette v Blonde - the fight is on

Is there no resolving the eternal blonde/brunette debate? Just when we thought we had it settled (blondes have more fun, brunettes wear glasses), along comes Professor Hans Juergens to get us all confused again.

Juergens, a German anthropologist from Kiel, put two ads in a lonely hearts column from imaginary 26-year-olds. Both wanted husbands but described themselves as blonde and brunette respectively. The male respondents in general, were happy for a lifetime commitment with the blonde but wanted only quick tumbles and passionate, short term nooky with the brunette. Ms Dark 'n' Mysterious, incidentally, got three times as many replies. His theory thus "proved", Hans went on to point out that blondes are always used in adverts for washing powder and nappies, whereas brunettes get the plum cars, booze and knickers ads.

Can it be true? Zoe Williams (briefly blonde), Kathy Phillips (brunette convert) and Mariella Frostrup (blonde and proud) share their experiences.

Brunette convert, Kathy Phillips

Anita Loos famously coined the phrase "Gentleman prefer blondes but marry brunettes" in the 1920s, and thanks to intensive input from hairdressers, we've been madly trying to emulate the fabulous blondes of screen and vinyl ever since. This, despite the assumption that the deeper, more poetic, brainy brunette was the sensible and preferable option - and that she, ultimately, bagged the husband.

We find the roots of the blonde so interesting that I wrote a book about it. For 20 years, I was blonde (and getting artificially blonder thanks to my favourite colourists). When I wrote the Vogue Book of Blondes in 1999, I put forward the notion, after an interesting conversation with the eminent geneticist Steve Jones, that the natural blonde was an endangered species.

Not so unnatural blondes. Sales of colourants have doubled in the past few years, with blonde the favourite colour of choice, and products enhancing blonde hair have proliferated on the supermarket shelves. Blondes and would-be blondes are apparently ignoring the rampant prejudice, acres of internet jokes, mountains of statistics and even university research papers which "prove" that blondes are feckless, bubbly, dizzy, stupid, raunchy, intimidating, babyish, brassy and, well ... a bit naf.

A year after my book came out, I was exhausted with blondeness. To be frank, I was bored. I felt that if one more person asked me, "Do blondes have more fun?", I would scream. So, almost a year ago, Susan Baldwin at John Frieda turned me into a brunette. How do I feel? Great, even though the initial reaction from friends and colleagues was interesting. "How brave you are," people said, as if I was giving myself a permanent handicap. "You'll go back to being a blonde soon enough," said others, acknowledging the addictive effects of peroxide. But perhaps I shall prove them wrong.

According to experimental psychologist Dr Tony Fallone, hair colour really does indicate personality. "Blondes are likely to be more outgoing and lively and are perceived as more feminine than their brunette counterparts," he says. Do I mind if I get noticed less? Do I mind not getting raced by white-van men at the traffic lights? Do I mind being perceived as more serious or more passionate than I was? I don't think so. And anyway, I'm not looking for a husband. If hair is the root of my personality, then going back to my roots has been a good thing. I prefer the quality of attention I get as a brunette, the quieter, darker, more sophisticated image that it suggests. People say I look younger - which is the opposite of what I expected - and that my eyes look bluer. If it's true that brunettes are picked to feature in adverts for chocolate, alcohol and lingerie, and I was a model, I'd be booking up with Sue Baldwin for a raven rinse like a shot. In the long run, brunettes get the better deal.

Kathy Phillips is associate editor at Vogue (health and beauty). The Vogue Book of Blondes is now out in paperback, £9.99 (Pavilion).

Blonde and proud, Mariella Frostrup

If you're blonde, you'll understand exactly why Geri Halliwell took the biggest risk of her career and left the world's most famous girl group. She was sick and tired of being just a "Spice". Scary, Sporty, Baby, Posh and (until recently) Ginger can try to pop their heads over the parapet and say "Hi, it's me", but their individuality has been devoured by something much bigger. Spice is the noun, their nicknames merely adjectives. Which is exactly what it's like to be blonde.

Being blonde means never saying you don't understand, unless you want to be predictable. It means always trying to tell the blonde joke first. "How do you make a blonde's eyes light up? Shine a torch in her ear." Ha ha bloody ha, but at least I didn't have to hear it from someone else. A brain surgeon could find herself counted alongside a topless dancer. Nothing in common? Of course they do. Bright blonde-bimbo blonde. Blonde is the description; anything else merely informs us of the variety.

Now at last it looks like brunettes are getting the same treatment. I'm not sure whether to cheer or slit my wrists. Forty years after burning our bras, women are still regarded as some giant amorphous lump that can only be separated by "defining" features like hair colour.

As for men being interested in an affair with a brunette but wanting to share their lives with a blonde, well ... they really must think we're stupid. Since when was a few hours in the sack before being dumped preferable to a man committing to you for the rest of his life? The complicated thought pattern employed in the male decision-making process is all too clear. Dark means naughty, bad, forbidden and therefore exciting. Blonde means light, bubbly, sweet and simple. No wonder men are always complaining that women change when they're in a relationship. Living up to those sorts of expectations is a challenge.

When accused of being a dumb blonde, Dolly Parton famously said: "Ah don't mind 'cos aa'm not dumb and aa'm not blonde." She's not alone. For brunettes who want more than a romp in the hay, I have this advice: pay a visit to the hairdresser. It's what most of us do. Real blondes are few and far between. Finding one necessitates foraging in colder northern climes than ours and men generally aren't that intrepid. Most men marry a blonde only to discover they've ended up with both. It must be so confusing.

Briefly blonde, Zoe Williams

The first half of the old adage has already been disproved: gentlemen do not prefer blondes. Whenever gentlemen are asked about the top 10 sexiest women in the world, they invariably name eight brunettes, one rogue redhead for variety, and then bung in Joanna Lumley, as proof that they're New Men, and aren't afeard of the mature lady at all. Oh no.

Now, Prof Juergens has set his fine scientific mind to disproving the second half of the saying ("...but they marry brunettes"). I recently spent a week blonde, in a doomed attempt to be more like Ann Widdecombe or Nigella Lawson (I never did decide). I had many, many more chance encounters: people (well, men) explained things to me, like how to put money in ticket machines, why full buses hadn't stopped, really obvious stuff. I got my cigarettes lit for me, even though I've been performing that task unaided since early adolescence.

I was asked stupid, pointless questions ("Are you off to work?" In whose universe is that going to be the beginning of an interesting conversation?)

There was, trust me, no possibility that I was more attractive blonde. I didn't even look that blonde; I looked like I'd smoked so much that I'd given myself an all-over nicotine stain. I assumed, therefore, that I simply looked much more stupid, less equal to the quotidian tasks of life. But a a blonde friend took issue with this and said that nobody mentally prefixed "blonde" with "dumb" these days, unless the said hair was accompanied by giant baps of a surgically enhanced cast. Rather than more stupid, she continued, blondes simply look more kind, more open, more pliant, less hostile. Nicer. More like someone on whom you'd want to base the mainspring of your emotional life and less like someone who'd shout at you over something that really wasn't your fault.

So, the appeal of the brunette is a simple syllogism. Blonde = nice = wife; brunette = not-blonde = not-wife = raw-sex-in-vest. Nobody goes for a brunette because they're looking for a bitch from hell; no, you'd go for a brunette because she doesn't look homely. And if you were looking for homely, you wouldn't be looking in a personal-ads column - you'd already be married to your cousin. Clearly, from the hair-owner's point of view, this is all nonsense - I can be unpleasant from underneath a barnet of any colour. This skill, I believe, I share with the rest of my gender.