Can hair dye affect a person's health?

Written by Dakotta Hargrave

As someone who has been dying her hair since 4th grade, I’ve always wondered if dying hair and bleaching it can affect your health or anything else about you. With going through 2-3 boxes of hair dye every 4-5 ish months to going to a professional every 6 ish months I’ve learned a lot about how it can affect your hair and a little bit about your health.

Obviously boxed hair dye is not the best decision but sometimes it's the only way to have a secret rebellious teenager phase behind your parents backs, with that said there are safe ways to use boxed hair dye if there is no professional around or you can't get to one. 

There are several things that can come out of dying your hair all together being, allergic reactions, contact dermatitis, skin and scalp irritation, potential cancer risks, eye irritation, and breathing issues. While these are just potential health effects they are still possible to happen so you would just have to gamble with your luck. They all are alike with skin irritations, rashes, itchiness, swelling can happen, breathing difficulties, dryness, flaking. Some separate things that aren't common in all are anaphylaxis in the allergic reaction area, scalp psoriasis in the skin and scalp irritation area, and asthma attacks in the breathing difficulties area. The major thing most concerned about is the cancer risk from the chemicals, which the concern consists of bladder cancer from exposure, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and particularly breast cancer (especially in women who use permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners).

There are safe hair dyes out there that anyone can use. As example for natural hair dyes there's Henna a plant based dye known for its gentle nature and ability to strengthen hair, Herbal Hair Colors a dye with hair color formulated with herbal extracts and ayurvedic ingredients which avoids harsh chemicals, and Plant-Based Dyes a natural colorant which avoids synthetic ingredients. Some other ideas are Semi-Permanent Dyes which is a broad statement but it doesn't change the hairs natural structure like permanent, Ammonia-Free Dyes which also just puts dye on the hair without changing the natural structure, and Peroxide-Free Dye since it's gentler on hair. 

This is a brand called Unicorn Hair, a pigment and conditioner hair color you can do in the comfort of your own home.

Overall the best way to get your hair colored is by a professional either in the salon, at their residency, or your own house. Box dye is a type of way to color your hair but it may not fully work on everyone's hair color. Box dye can really help with going darker instead of helping someone go lighter. From personal experience using the box bleach makes your hair orange, unless your going for that, it doesn't do well with going lighter especially if you have darker hair. You can use box dye to go from blonde/ brown to dark brown/ black. If you want something more vivid than a natural color a safer way to do it by yourself is using hair colors mixed with conditioner since it is gentler on your hair then just going straight for the bleach then color.

A professional, my aunt, named Skylar had said, “Box dye isn’t the safest on your hair but there is a brand named Unicorn hair and it's one of the easiest non chemical hair colors you can get to do on your own.”  The brand Unicorn Hair is pigment and conditioner, it works well on blonde and bleached blonde hair. It's almost like applying a hair mask. If you have darker hair it won't work well enough though. Hair color can cause health problems but there are ways to go about it safer than using box dye.