Greasy, Grimy, Grima Hair...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

But to be honest, I tend to become a tad uncomfortable with all Tolkien's descriptions of a people's hair colour and eye colour, as if there were a kind of, well, I don't wish to imply anything here, but 'racial purity' is the term that comes to mind.

As an aside, what is Tolkien's obsession with Hair about? On Ardalambion's (downloadable) Quenya wordlist I find the following:

finda "having hair, -haired" (the gloss "-haired" evidently means that finda may be used in compounds, like *carnifinda "red-haired") (PM:340)
Findaráto *"Hair-champion", Sindarized as Finrod (SA:ar(a) )
findë (1) "hair" (especially of the head) (PM:340), "a tress or plait of hair" (PM:345), "tress, braid of hair, lock of hair" (SPIN)
findë (2) "cunning" (prob. noun) (LT1:253; this "Qenya" word is evidently obsoleted by # 1 above)
Findecáno ("-káno") *"Hair-commander"; Sindarized as Fingon (PM:344)
findessë "a head of hair, a person's hair as a whole" (PM:345)
findl "lock of hair, tress" (but findil elsewhere - in LotR-style Quenya, no word can end in -dl). (LT2:341)
finë (stem *fini-, given the primitive form phini) "a hair" (PM:340) or "larch" (SPIN)
finië "cunning" (prob. noun) (LT1:253)
finwa "sagacious" (LT1:253)
Finwë masc. name, apparently displaying the frequent ending -wë suffixed to a stem normally having to do with hair, but the name is obscure (see Tolkien's discussion in PM:340-341). Also in Etym (PHIN, WEG). According to VT46:9, Finwë was also the name of tengwa #10 in the pre-classical Tengwar system presupposed in the Etymologies, but Tolkien would later call #10 formen instead.