Hair Dye and Allergy to Beauty Products

As a result of the ladies fashion of having their hair dyed, my number of patients for hair dye allergy has grown exponentially; I probably have a few hundreds of such patients.

The reason of hair dye allergy is basically due to the chemicals to make the hair dye. There are very few cases of such allergy when using henna hair dyes but which young lady (or man) wants to use henna dyes these days?

As a result, I literally have hundreds of antidotes each for a particular patient. Don't forget that hair dyes remains on your head for a period of months. However, most hair dye allergy do not manifeast immediately. Indeed, most of them start to cause itchy rash around the face and neck only a few months later.

Cosmetics (Beauty products) are also a major problem causing rash around the face and it may not be itchy but present as acne-like lesions. Look at your cosmetic bottle and see how many chemicals are shown as ingredients (and note that the company does not need to show all the ingredients!). I find the major problem of cosmetic allrgy arises when one changes ones cosmetic to another type, typically someone one who want to upgrade to more expensive ones.

One example is a patient, as a ressult of her husband doing very well, decided to change to a very expensive brand. Unfortunately she became sensitive to these and have to give up and I advised her to go back to her old range.

Lesson: DONT CHANGE YOUR COSMETICS AND HAIR OR SKIN PRODUCTS IF THEY ARE SERVING YOU WELL

My learning continues...

Blame The Salons

For the last couple of years, hairstylists have created a deluge of allergic cases, mainly because women love having their hair dyed.

With the exception of henna (which is popular with the Indian community and also the older generation), the chemical ingredients in hair dyes are highly allergic in nature. Hence the great number of such cases. Typically, the allergies present themselves as rashes around the neck, behind the ears, face and even further down the body. When the patient showers, the water flows down and creates the rash. 

Usually at the initial stages when the hair is dyed there is no adverse reaction but after a period of time, the allergy sets in and the person with the allergy has to endure a few months until the hair dye disappears. Once a diagnosis is established, I teach patients how not to allow the hair to come in contact with the skin as well how to shower so that the dye does not contact the body. I also prepare an antidote for the specific hair dye. If the patient wants to dye her hair again, she has to bring the dye for me to test before she proceeds to use. There are also the dyes used to highlight the hair which also causes allergy.

I classify such allergies as chemical allergy mainly because they are due to the chemicals found in these daily substances. Toothpastes can also cause allergy as a result of the mint or the whitening contents. Hair shampoos can cause hair itch and rashes and soaps with chemical ingredients are notoriously common causes of allergy. In fact i have always been against the use of such soaps and the fact that many people use them because they are advertised to kill bacteria.

I will write about cosmetics in another post.

Lesson: We use too many chemicals daily; use those with the least chemicals