Hair Coloring – Beware of Paraphenylenediamine Allergies

Hair coloring is a good idea to look better, but sometimes paraphenylenediamine, an ingredient in hair colors causes allergies that can be enough painful and you may need an urgent treatment



Paraphenylenediamine is an often ignored ingredient found in most of the commercially available hair dyes and is the reason of most reported hair dye allergies in France. These allergic reactions are currently growing at a very strong rate. No wonder we are enjoying different hair colors, but at the same time we are increasing the risk of getting suffered from such type of allergies. Nearly a million French are potentially affected by this intolerance.


Allergy to dyes has risen sharply

This increase is not surprising because for a decade, the number of users of hair dyes flew through the roof. This mode of getting different hair color affects all age groups; even young people use it regularly. In Japan, figures available are particularly illustrative, 41% of high school girls are using the hair coloring regularly, 85% of women and 33% of men between 20 to 30 years of age groups are coloring their hair regularly! In 1992, they were respectively 13%, 6% and 2%.


The major factors of allergies development is the patterns of hair dyes are:

• Now, people apply the colors more frequently, time span has reduced a lot.


• The choice of color varies greatly from one time to another which means that no one assigns a shade more permanently rather than changing it very quickly.


• Sometimes the commercially available hair oil products also contains the substances that either produces the allergies or enhances the growth of hair dye allergies

The problem of allergies

Everything would be better if the products of color did not contain para-phenylenediamine, a substance well known to cause reactions allergic. Yet despite the research in this area to develop other alternative molecules to avoid the risk allergic, this ingredient is essential in the composition of dyes hair. This is the only currently available that achieves a uniform color which does not eliminate during the shampoo. This means it plays a central role in the ingredient list of hair coloring products?


More than a million French are concerned!

Recently, the centers of allergy treatment in France reported an increase in cases of allergies related to paraphenylenediamine. According to extrapolations cited as an example in an international publication recently, Thailand has more than one million people affected by intolerance skin to paraphenylenediamine, France about a million and Germany 1.3 million.


What are the symptoms?

When the reaction is severe, emergency treatment is required rather than asking questions. But in less extreme cases, the classic features are those of the immediate appearance of eczema on the face and scalp particularly marked at the boundary between the hair and forehead. Such a reaction requires a consultation. The diagnostic test involves the laying of skin patches containing a low dose of para-phenylenediamine.



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