Recovering From a Hair Dye Allergy

Hello, everyone. This is Mashubi from mysensitiveskincare.com. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Today's podcast is on a topic that's become very popular on my website and I really do understand why. It has to do with hair dye allergies.

The reason that, unfortunately, this is becoming more and more of a topic of interest these days, is because of the really intense reactions that a lot of people are having to hair dyes.

This is especially for hair dyes that are for brunette and black hair because there's a chemical in the hair dye that's called PPD.

I don't even know how to pronounce the name, the chemical name. But for some people, it can cause really intense reaction that in some cases can be severe and life-threatening. I'm so sorry for those people that have gone through this kind of thing or that are going through it.

Now some people just recovered, and then there are people that find themselves after this experience being really overly sensitized.

I'd like to respond to that in a little bit. Obviously, after something like this, you don't ever want to experience it again. So it can be a life changing thing when you go through something this intense. You want to rest and recover your health as much as possible and to not use the hair dye anymore.

Now I know that that's difficult! I am 56. I'm getting gray hair. I certainly understand, you look at yourself in the mirror and you would like to have no gray hair or just to have your hair look a different color.

So I really, really understand. Unfortunately, there are not a whole lot of great options for coloring your hair. There really aren't. I've looked at this quite a bit and some people find henna works for them. And that's really all that I know of.

Now for myself, I have light hair and I know a little more from personal experience about hair lightening.

There aren't the same kind of extreme chemical issues that I've discovered with hair lightening products, although that can also be pretty bad for your hair.

But if you have dark hair and you're recovering from a hair dye allergy, I would recommend that you absolutely do not go back to using any kind of hair dye with PPD.

Now, I have done all these research on safe hair dye products and there are products out there that claimed to be natural and safe and they still have PPD, so you want to be extremely careful.Extremely careful.

Read all the product ingredients, contact the company, really make sure that what you're putting on your body is safe. Now especially with hair, our bodies absorb quite a bit and your whole body is absorbing the chemicals that you put on your hair.

So the other thing I'd like to talk about is a whole body approach to recovering from hair dye allergies.  The reason for that is because when you've gone through something like this that can be very traumatic to your system and cause all kinds of inflammation and reactions.

It's really awful, sometimes you find that you're not bouncing back the way you'd like. That can happen for number of reasons.  I am not a doctor, but I have had a lot of experience with this kind of challenge.

You have a really difficult or traumatic experience then you notice your health just isn't bouncing back, and then something else happens and then something else happens and then something else happens.

So what I've learned from personal experience-- and this is only my personal experience because I'm not a health care professional-- is that there's a way that our bodies can get into a hypervigilance state so that there is more and more inflammation.

There has been some scientific research done on this. My own personal experience with this has... It's kind of complicated to explain. I'll try and keep it simple.

What I learned is that retraining my limbic system, retraining my brain is actually what made the difference in toning down some of the inflammation and over sensitivity that came from that kind of going through lots and lots and lots of stressful experiences.

So it's called limbic system retraining. Actually I have a page on it that shared my story with one form of retraining.  There are several different types of limbic system retraining you can do. What I did was called Dynamic Neural Retraining.

Some medical doctors are starting to know about neuro-retraining. Usually, this kind of thing, you discover this after there are no more medical things that can be done for you when you see all these doctors and they say, "Sorry, there's nothing I can do."  I'm very lucky, my primary care doctor actually knows about Dynamic Neural Retraining so I'm very grateful for that. 

If you're recovering from a hair dye allergy, do everything possible to reduce stress, to eat really well, to reduce the amount of toxins in your body and to gently and slowly transition yourself to a safer and healthier regime of personal care products and healthy natural foods. If you do that gently and slowly and recover your health, most likely you'll be able to recover more easily.

I hope this is helpful. I send you lots of blessings and good wishes. I look forward to hearing your questions and comments. Thank you for joining me in this podcast. Bye-bye.

Hair Dye Allergy Tips From Those Who Suffer

1.  Do everything possible to remove unneccessary toxins from your life and your personal care products.  I've written a lot about this here at our Safe Cosmetics page.  

When you are recovering, I recommend using as few hair products as possible until you are feeling better.  

I use the Cleure Shampoo and Conditioner and other hair products, as they are very clean and non-irritating, and they also work well.  I do appreciate products that actually make my hair look nice!  :)

2.  While you are recovering, eat whole, nourishing, real food that contains it's natural vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Now is a good time to lose the junk food ... if you need a sweet, at least eat a whole grain treat that has some real food in it.

Our bodies, when given healthy food can recover much more easily than if we are eating empty calories and foods that are filled with chemicals.

3.  When you are dealing with this kind of a severe allergic reaction, it is really, really important that you find ways to reduce as much stress as possible in your life.

I know, that sounds almost impossible in today's world, but any way that you can arrange your life so you can feel some peace and rest, will be a HUGE help in your recovery.

It is also enormously important that you arrange for as loving an environment as possible, so that you can recover.  If you are around people or energies that are negative, ask them to leave.

Create a healing space for yourself of love and peace.  Spend time in nature.  Listen to healing music.  Ask your inner wisdom for guidance.  Your body knows how to heal itself, if you let it.

4.  Once you have recovered from your hair dye allergy, you will likely be looking for some more natural hair dye options.

Although there aren't any good hair dye products that I have yet found that work well and are free of PPD, there are some homemade hair dyes you can try for darker hair.  

Although they won't work as effectively as the chemicals, they won't hurt you and you may find one that works for you.  Here are some of the homemade hair dye recipes for brunette hair that we found.