It's time to realize the obvious truth that not everything you can legally buy is good for your health and safe. Just look around the store shelves, even in the grocery store or drugstore. Can hair dyes be harmful? Yes, and not just to allergy sufferers or people who are particularly sensitive.
From time to time, there are reports in the media of serious poisoning after using hair dyes, and even deaths. These are not just fake news, although it must be admitted that the risk, especially with a single use of a preparation with a harmful substance, is negligible.
Every day, millions of women around the world use products whose composition may raise doubts. Some become dangerous only in concentrated form, others accumulate in the body for years. Some harm the hair itself, others the entire body.
Certainly, in the drugstore, just like in the grocery store, it doesn't hurt to read the labels and think about whether all the financial savings are actually worthwhile.
Irritants in Hair Dyes – No Secret
Are drugstore hair dyes really any different from those offered in hair salons? Definitely yes, because successful hair coloring by an inexperienced person requires at least a higher concentration of dyes and ease of use. Home dye must be more universal.
Do modern dyes actually contain irritating substances? Definitely yes, and manufacturers do not hide it. Quite the opposite – they warn about it in the leaflet attached to the package, instructing how to conduct a skin test before dyeing to check for possible hypersensitivity to its ingredients.
Ammonia and the rest – what are the risks?
You dye your hair and nothing bad happens? Remember that the available products differ significantly in composition and next time you may not be so lucky. What's more: even previously indifferent substances can cause irritation over time.
The irritants contained in hair dyes can harm not only them, but also other organs. They have a particularly negative effect on the respiratory tract, eyes and mucous membranes. This is why special precautions are recommended when applying them and during coloring, but sometimes this is not enough.
Among the ingredients of hair dyes that you need to be especially careful with are isopropyl alcohol, oleic acid, polyethylene glycol and various chlorides. The most common irritant in hair dyes is still ammonia.
Are you choosing ammonia-free dyes? Its substitutes in dyes, i.e. other substances that help open the hair cuticle and allow for coloring, also cause irritation.
Hair dyes and carcinogens
When using paint containing irritating substances, you may experience a scratchy throat or even shortness of breath, decreased concentration, dizziness, and nausea.
However, these are temporary problems, and there are also those that have a negative impact on us in the long term.
Many popular hair dyes contain chemicals that can cause cancer. Be sure to avoid products that contain:
- 4-methoxy- m-phenylenediamine,
- 4-chloro- m-enylenodiaminę,
- 4-amino- 2-nitrofenol
- 2-4 toluenediamine.
Their carcinogenic effect has been scientifically confirmed.
Better read the leaflet and check if your paint does not contain them. Since the end of the 20th century, manufacturers have had to use the same names for ingredients, which makes such control easier.
It won't be easy to find a hair dye in a drugstore that is free from all of these substances. If you also want to avoid silicones that weigh your hair down or common allergens (nickel, phenylenediamines, sulfates, resorcinol, hydrogen peroxide, hydrogen chloride and parabens), it will be really hard to make purchases.
Maybe it's better to put yourself in the hands of specialists?