Are Your Herbal Hair Colors REALLY “Herbal”?

This is a guest post from Sarika Periwal. If you’d like to guest post for RevitaliseYourHealth.com, then please take a look at the Write For Us section. 

The term ‘herbal’ naturally causes us to think in terms of natural ingredients such as plants and plant based substances that are free of chemicals, toxins and other harmful substances. But it pays to know that just because they put the term ‘Herbal’ on the pack, this doesn’t mean that product really only uses plant based ingredients.

The fact is that there is no regulation regarding the meaning of the term ‘herbal’. There is also no regulation of who can use the word and for what product. While the term herbal could be completely misleading or it could simply mean that the product has some amount of herbs added to the product in addition to many of the usual non-herbal ingredients.

How can you tell if a hair color is really herbal?

There are certain natural or plant based colors that can help to color hair which have been used for centuries by humans. Henna is one such substance which has been used by traditional societies to color and condition hair and to tint skin for millennia.

You can look for products that use henna and also look at the ingredient labels to make sure that it is free of pesticides, preservatives and other chemicals. Henna can have some limitations. though. For example, for white hair it can turn hair into a rather garish orange or maroon so it should be ensured that the henna hair color that one picks is suitable for one’s hair type.

Other natural tints for the hair can be obtained from ingredients such as green clay and birch leaf.

However the real test to know whether a hair color is really herbal is to check the list of ingredients to see what ingredients are not present in that list. There are a number of toxic substances that routinely get added to hair dyes and hair colors that are known to have effects ranging from damaging hair to causing skin eruptions to harming internal organs and even contributing to cancer risk.

Ingredients to be aware of include:

• Ammonia is one of the common villains present in most hair dyes and colors and it is this that gives off that strong chemical odor to the products.
• Hydrogen peroxide is another ingredient generally added to hair colors which ought not to be present in herbal colors.
• PPD or Paraphenylenediamine is what fixes the color on hair and is known to cause strong allergic reactions and even organ failure and death in rare cases and should definitely be off the list.
• Parabens are listed in many different ways such as propylparabens, methylparaben and several other types or it could be listed merely as ‘perfume’ or ‘parfum’ and should also be avoided.
• Alcohol and preservatives should also be avoided.
• Ideally, and this one depends purely on your morals, the hair color should never have been tested on animals.

Many brands such as Herbatint, EcoColors, Naturcolor, Aubrey Organics, Rainbow Henna, Morocco Method International and many others are marketed as herbal hair colors and are free from the majority of the above chemicals.

About the Author:

Sarika Periwal represents a site promoting natural home remedies for hair and skin. Find recipes to control hair loss naturally. She promotes herbal treatments over chemical ones. She has written about natural hair color dyes that are effective and produce gorgeous results. You can color your hair into shades of blonde, brown, red, black or even blue at home using plants. 

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