THE LAST time you booked a hair colouring appointment at your local salon were you offered a skin test for sensitivity to the dye?

Despite the fact that failure to do this may affect a salon’s insurance liability, it would seem that patch tests are still not routinely carried out by all hairdressers.

It’s also a fair bet that those who dye their hair at home using an off-the-shelf kit often fail to follow the instructions on patch testing.

Manufacturers say that a skin test should be conducted each and EVERY time a product is used.

And yet, says hair stylist Louise Hunter, who has been in the industry for 16 years, a lot of hairdressers erroneously believe that clients only need to be tested once.

She recently set up a salon that uses natural hair colouring products and says: “I’m getting quite a high number of new clients who are saying that they’ve never been tested and these are women in their fifties who have never had a skin patch test.

“It’s important to test someone for every treatment because you can develop a reaction at any time, even after years of having a colour applied.”

Louise, who runs Rubies Hairdressing in Wellington Mills, Lindley, says the problem is often to do with concentrations of the chemical Paraphenylenediamine (PPD), which is used to ‘fix’ permanent hair colours – but it is possible to have a reaction to any constituent in a dye, including naturally-occurring chemicals.

PPD was the subject of a debate in the House of Lords seven months ago, when Baroness Taylor of Bolton asked the Government what steps were being taken to raise awareness of the risks from hair dyes.

She told the house that PPD was responsible for at least 8% of all allergic reactions. According to the British Medical Journal, reactions to the chemical are on the increase, probably because more men and women are dyeing their hair than ever before and from an earlier age.

It is estimated that nearly 100m dyeing units are used each year in the UK in salons and at home.

In fact, concerns over chemicals in hair dyes have been voiced for many years. Back in 2001, a report into the links between permanent hair dyes and bladder cancer, commissioned by the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Products, concluded that there were potential health risks from hair dyes. Regulations were tightened up on the use of certain chemicals and colours, leading to industry-wide reformulation of hair dyes.

But PPDs are still allowed in concentrations of up to 2% and are found in greater quantities in darker hair colours – they’re also an ingredient in some henna tattoos.

Even products using natural vegetable hair colours may contain PPDs because until recently there were few other alternatives.

“Hairdressers didn’t really like the alternatives because they didn’t give as good a result as the chemical hair dyes,” explained Louise. “And many hairdressers don’t really know much about what’s in hair dyes anyway, so they’re not worried about them – it’s not part of the training.”

However, when setting up her own salon 31-year-old Louise attended a trade fair and found herself drawn to an Italian company, Sens.us, that has pioneered PPD-free hair colouring. Its products contain 93% botanical and naturally-occurring ingredients.

“The colours are all naturally-derived from plants grown in Tuscany and the dyes have no ammonia either,” says Louise.

“I felt it was the hairdressing of the future.”

Some of the products she uses still contain a small amount of PPD and she patch tests all her clients.

“We send out a test patch in the mail to people who have appointments. They apply it 48 hours before they come to the salon and then we have a look at it,” she explained.

Even slight reddening of the skin indicates a sensitivity. “I think up to 50% of people experience some irritation or sensitivity,” said Louise. “They might find they have some itchiness or discomfort when colours are applied. The ammonia can also cause breathing problems for people with asthma.

“We have found two clients with an allergy and I have clients who knew they were allergic,” she added.

Once a sensitivity develops it’s important to avoid hair dyes to prevent triggering a major, potentially serious reaction.

Louise runs the only Sens.us salon in this region. She recently won an award as a brand ambassador after attending an international competition run by the company in Tuscany. She competed against hairdressers from 10 European countries.

She finds it difficult to understand why more hairdressers aren’t interested in reducing the quantities of artificial chemicals that they handle.

“We’re in contact with them every single day so if it’s better for our clients then it’s better for us too,” she says.

PPD has been used in dyes since the 19th century and is present in almost all permanent hair colours.

According to DrLaura Waters, course leader for pharmaceutical science at the University of Huddersfield and a winner of a British Science Association award, up to 2.5% of adults are allergic to PPD.

“Most get irritated skin, some get blisters, then a very small percentage get the more extreme reactions that make the headlines. In these cases their faces swell and their eyes cannot open,” she said.

“PPD is known as a skin sensitiser but the mechanism of how it causes sensitivity is not fully understood. It is particularly complicated as it is thought to be the interaction with the other ingredients in the dye.”

Up to now alternatives have, she says, also proved to be harmful to small numbers of users.

She believes that PPD will continue to be an industry staple for hair dyes.

“To get approval for any alternative would be a long and costly procedure for a cosmetic company. So long as PPD remains legal they have no reason to try and develop alternative ingredients.”

STUDENT Sophie Foster, 19, has, like many young women today, been colouring her hair for several years.

She had no problems until on one occasion she reacted to a black hair dye. “My skin went red, irritated and itchy,” she explained.

After that Sophie, who is from Scapegoat Hill in Huddersfield, found that all types of dark hair dye caused irritation.

She switched to lighter shades, in the end going blonde, and always had a skin test before colouring.

When she decided that she wanted to return her hair to its natural dark brown Sophie looked for alternatives to conventional dyes. She went to Louise Hunter at Rubies for a PPD-free colour treatment and says her skin didn’t react to the dye.

“I’ve now got more confidence,” she added, “and I will go back and experiment with other colours.”