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Wholesome Life
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Dyeing hair can effect your health and the environment
Blondes are reknown for having fun, though sitting in a chair at the hair dressers for hours, the strong ammonia tingling your scalp and hitting the back of throat is perhaps the least environmentally friendly or organic way to change hair colour.
Hair colouring or dyeing has been around for centuries. Cleopatra reportedly used indigo, turmeric and black walnut hulls to achieve that desired colouring - but when chemicals were introduced into hair dyes last century to keep the colours ‘permanent’, things started to go a bit awry.
It is not only your head that will be changed - dyes can cause redness, swelling, and skin sensitivity, but regular use can increase the risk of leukaemia, arthritis and cancer. It's not just your health that will be effected. Washing your hair after the coat toxins will be washed away into our water, introducing carcinogens and petrochemicals into our water supply and environment.
Luckily however, there are now an increasing selection of eco-friendly alternatives to conventional dyes that promise to be a lot kinder to your hair and the world around us.
The Cosmetic Toiletry and Perfumery Association (CTPA) in the UK have conducted surveys with outstanding results that over 40% of women dye their hair regularly.
All dyes contain a variety of ingredients, over half of which are ‘sensitisers’ (allergy inducing), according to the EU’s Scientific Committee, most of the health problems associated with hair dye come from - P-Phenylenediamine (PPD) - an aromatic amine which is in almost every dye on the market.
PPD is most often associated with allergic reactions - like swelling, puffiness and constricted breathing. It is this reason why hair dye products recommend doing a patch test before dying one’s hair. Darker dyes are more concentrated, lending to health warnings that women who use dark hair dyes are 50-70 per cent more likely to develop follicular lymphoma, a non-aggressive blood cancer, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Until technology advances, PPD's are still required to be used in mainstream and alternative hair dyes (though on a lesser scale).
Within Europe there is a level of six per cent of PPD in hair dyes, though some alternative hair dye companies like Herb UK’s Organic Colour System only have 0.6%.
Next time you are considering of going a brown hazelnut colour, ask your hairdresser or your dye supplier whether they have alternative hair dyes. Otherwise look out for Tints of Nature for home use dyes.
For further information where you can purchase Organic Colour Systems from Herb UK, visit www.herbuk.com.
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