Natural dye for your hair

The Scary Synthetic Story

You must have heard alot of scary tales about synthetic hair dyes. The bad news is that the more permanent the hair dye is, the more damaging your hair is. This is due to the presence of paraphenylene diamine (PPD), mixed with a developer (hydrogen peroxide). This mixture will remove the hair pigments and replace with the new colour. For dyeing a lighter colour on a darker hair, it has to be bleached first using hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst (persulphate) to accelerate the bleaching affect of hydrogen peroxide. After bleaching, the light hair dye is added.

To give you an idea about how dangerous hydrogen peroxide is; if you put a pig's liver into hydrogen peroxide solution, there will be sizzling sound from the liver and I've witnessed that laboratory experiment in high school and I was amazed backed then.

Thus frequent use of synthetic hair dyes may lead to:-

1) Hair thining
2) Hair breakage
3) Hair loss
4) May cause allergy reaction on scalp

The Alternative Natural Dye

The good news is that alternative natural dyes are harmless to your hair. In fact, it is the safest hair dyes to use. In ancient times, vegetable dyes such as henna was already commonly used as body art. Besides henna, camomile, logwood, indigo and rhubarb are also useful vegetable dyes to consider. The only disadvantage is its limited selection of colours as compared to the synthetic dyes.

Another thing to take note is about the black henna. Indigo may give a dark colour resembling black but they are not black. If it is too black to be true, it is perhaps the 'fake henna in black'. You can read more from here.

Weighing the Pros and Cons

Due to limited selection of hair dyes, it is no wonder synthetic dyes still remains available in the market. To get the best of the synthetic world, there are some restrictions on PPD usage where it must be less than 6% in the hair dye products. Some hair colour products also promise a lower PPD content (0.8% to 1.2%) and this is really good news to me. So next time, when you pop by the hair salon for a hair dye, do request for natural hair dyes or at least hair dyes with lower PPD content. I am sure this change will go a long way to keeping your crown of beauty attached.

Other related articles

1) Non-toxic Hair Facts

2) Henna from Wikipedia

Diet for Hair loss

Having a hair loss problem is often quite embarrasing and awkward especially for women. Hair loss may occur at any part of the scalp; at localised patch or the whole scalp.

Causes of hair loss
One of the possible reasons for hair loss is deficiency in protein, zinc, vitamins B and C. It can also be your body's way of signalling stress, anaemia, thyroid dysfunction, gastrointestinal (for women) or diabetes. If your hairloss is diagnosed alopecia areata, it can be due to food sensitivity. Sudden change in diet, chemotherapy or after pregnancy (for women) can also cause extreme hair loss. I say 'extreme' because it is normal that we shed 50 to 100 strands of hair daily. That sounds alot of strands but if you count the strands, this number range is Normal.

Good Diet Plan
The good diet to prevent hair loss is to eat enough protein (excluding animal meat), zinc, iron, vitamins B and C. For easy way out, you can take multi-vitamins supplements daily. If you prefer the natural sources, you can find them in whole grain cereal, wheat germ, oats, brown rice, nuts and seeds, cheese, fish and eggs.

Diet for medical condition
For Alopecia areata, keep a diet log book or at least keep mental track of your diet enough to identify the food you are sensitive to. For hair loss due to gastrointestinal, take acidophilus tablets or acidophilus-containing cultured milk drink (e.g Yakult or Vitagen) at least once a day should do the trick. For thyroid dysfunction, primerose oil is reccomended.

Food to avoid
Where possible, reduce or avoid refine carbohydrates, animal meat, high fat, high salt or high sugared food, especially the processed ones.


Related literatures:

1) Remedies for Hair loss - separating fact from fiction

2) American Academy of Dermatology - hair loss

White Hair for Hair Loss Days

You feel that you are still young and energetic but you wonder why you are one of those who has white hairs on their head. Stress at workplace, schools and even home is inevitable and it cannot be avoided. If you are working, people might guess your age to be more than your growing stage; If you are schooling, your classmates may constantly remind you of your white hair and attempt to help you remove them. In fact, everybody seems to be reminding you about your white hair problem, even your very own mirror.

White hair versus hair loss
But is it really a bad thing to keep your white hair? I may sound crazy here but seriously, keeping your white hair can be useful afterall. You see, I didn't used to have hair loss problem until I turn twenties. In my teen days, I didn't think I would have hair loss problems so I furiously pluck and cut my white hair out. In fact, I didn't even consider the hair loss possibility as I look at my parents. As I enter into workforce, I realise I was losing more hair than I could afford and I was slowly showing some signs of balding on my crown.

The solution
I had to solve the two problems: white hair vs massive hair loss. So, I figured out the best way to preserve my crown without plastic surgery or treatment is to grow back my remaining white hair and then dye my hair with complementing highlights. As an asian with a black crown, my hairdresser chose the colours that is not too dark nor too light while the highlight colour to complement the main dye and my white hair. Though it took about half a year to grow enough of white hair, I am glad it is worth the wait. I also choose shampoo that helps to make the hair dyes last longer.

Adjusting my diet and lifestyle
As I understand the side effects of dyeing hair (such as more hair loss), I took a step further. Thus, besides the physical changes I've done to my crown, I have also kept a log of what I have been eating. I realised that there were too much salt and sugar in my diet. Thus, I reviewed my options and took another step further to cut down on the soya sauce (Light, dark and sweet) and preserved fruits in exchange for rice vinegar and fresh fruits. I also attempted to exercise though I believe there is still room for improvement. In addition, I also bought in the idea of cold shower as it not only can stimulate blood circulation, but it also improve the hair quality.

So far, I'm seeing some results and I am glad I make the adjustments. Hope you benefit from this personal tip from me and save your white hair early.


My other related articles

1) Diet for hair loss