�Those nutty about gingers are now able to sign up to a new redhead-only dating website thanks to the “hair-brained” idea of an Upminster entrepreneur.

Top Carrots aims to pair up redheads, or help those with different coloured hair find ginger love.

Founder Sam Heakin, 22, says there is nothing else like it out there.

He said: “I noticed the growing market in dating sites and being ginger myself, I’d never seen an online site for redheads and decided that it was time to make one!

“I don’t think there’s been one because I think maybe people are a bit scared of the idea and what people might think, or simply they may not believe there’s a market for it.”

In the four months since going live, the website – which calls itself “the world’s leading agency to find that special redhead” – has garnered a lot of attention, appearing on TV and in the national press.

It has also captured the imagination of bloggers around the world.

Sam, a former Gaynes School student, said: “There have been many mixed feelings on the site. I went on ITV’s This Morning to do a talk with Big Brother contestant Rebecca Vaughan – we had some good comments after that show.

Bullies

“The TV Show The Wright Stuff had a heated debate, which was mainly bad, but the people doing the reviews weren’t even ginger.”

Sam says he doesn’t think redheads will ever escape the bullies: “There are many shades of ginge but I don’t think people’s perceptions of us will ever change.

“Everyone gets stick about something in their life at some point – it’s how you deal with it!”

Sam, who cites Geri Halliwell as his ginger heroine, says he has other ideas for romantic redheads in the pipeline: “We have just launched an online shop on the back of the site.”