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When a client’s hair stylist switched to an indigenous hair dye he developed severe itching, erythema, crusting, and pustules on the surrounding skin. Now, what could have possibly went wrong?

Gago-Dominguez, a researcher, explained that small amounts of arylamines are absorbed through the skin during the use of hair dye. Don’t dye your hair without having as much of your skin covered as possible. One needs to be careful while applying black hair dye, as it is difficult to remove from any surface including skin and fabric. Lawsone dye infuses skin, hair, and porous surfaces but does not permanently or chemically alter them. Para-phenylenediamine, a key ingredient of many hair dyes, is known to trigger allergic skin rashes in some people. When you use hair dye, you absorb small amounts of chemicals called arylamines through your skin. It “dyes your skin more than your hair,” one well known researcher said.

What is PPD in Hair Dye?

Paraphenylenediamine (PPD) is a chemical substance that is widely used as a permanent hair dye. PPD hair dyes usually come packaged as 2 bottles, one containing the PPD dye preparation and the other containing the developer or oxidizer. The use of PPD as a hair dye is popular because it is a permanent dye that gives a natural look.

Why is it that many hand painting using Henna (herbal dye) develop skin rashes? After all, Henna dye used for hand painting is 100% herbal and does not contain PPD!

That’s because almost all henna-tattoo artists are mixing in black hair dye that contains paraphenylenediamine – ‘PPD’ for short. This mixing of chemical makes the hand dye more permanent, as the palm sweats a lot, the tattoo artist is ensuring that the ink remains for a longer period of time. If you develop skin rash after using a dark dye, you’ll be allergic to all dark hair dyes – anything that contains the PPD compound.

Currently there are no permanent oxidation type hair dyes that can be safely used by PPD allergic individuals. If you have an allergy to PPD and have your hair dyed, you should avoid the use of all oxidation type hair dyes. PPD is an occupational allergen among hairdressers; there is limited cross-reactivity with azo clothing dyes and back rubber. Those who are allergic to PPD hair dyes must avoid all synthetic chemical hair dyes.

Manic Panic hair dye works best on hair pre-lightened to a very light blonde. The idea being that it would look like she was a blonde who occasionally dyed her hair black. Apparently, the darker shades of hair dye contain significantly more chemicals than the blonde shades. The first step is to use the cheap blonde dye to bleach your hair. After an hour, rinse the blonde dye out of your hair.