America's Beauty Show Challenges Toxic Salons
Chicago, IL
Thursday, March 26, 2009
America's Beauty Show, March 28-30 in Chicago, is dedicated
to safe and healthy beauty salons. By doing so, the Show
raises serious and decades overdue concerns on the dangers
of conventional nationwide salons.
Salon products are generally dispensed from bulk containers
without labeled ingredients. Of particular concern is the
cumulative contamination of air, particularly in poorly
ventilated salons, with volatile ingredients and fine
particles, particularly from hair sprays. Known as aerosols,
these can penetrate deeply into the lungs of clients, and
even more so their stylists working a usual five-day week.
Products used in the great majority of nationwide salons
contain a wide range of toxic ingredients, including
carcinogens, hormonal ingredients, and allergens. Exposure
to them poses hidden dangers to clients, and much more so
their stylists.
Stylists, particularly in small hair and beauty salons, tend
to drift in and out of their jobs. So formal long-term
studies to investigate dangers to their health, known as
epidemiological, are not feasible. Moreover, there is
substantial and long standing evidence on a wide range of
toxic effects in salon workers, particularly hairdressers
and beauty stylists. These include nausea, sleep disorders,
fatigue, and numbness and pain in the fingers. They also
include allergic dermatitis, acute lung irritation, asthma,
and chronic bronchitis.
An additional poorly recognized danger from salon and
personal use relates to hair straighteners based on
thioglycolic acid. Besides causing hair to become brittle
and break, they can also irritate the scalp and cause
pustular and allergic reactions.
Of particular concern are hair dyes. About 35 percent of
women and 10 percent of men are regularly exposed to these
dyes in salons or by personal use. Black and dark brown
permanent and semi-permanent dyes contain carcinogens,
particularly those known as phenylenediamines. These have
been shown to cause cancers, particularly non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and multiple myeloma, besides
breast and bladder cancers. However, in spite of this long
standing evidence, stylists, let alone their clients, remain
unaware of these avoidable risks of sometimes lethal
cancers. In sharp contrast to the U.S., these dyes have been
banned in Europe.
The continued use of these dangerous hair dyes is all the
more reckless. Safe certified organic dyes, particularly
those marketed by Logona, a German company, are now
available in the U.S. These dyes achieve stable and
long-lasting colors, ranging from brown to black.
A recently recognized concern relates to the potent
carcinogen vinyl chloride, a propellant in some pressure
sprays, which has been incriminated as a cause of fatal
liver cancer. Another recent concern relates to hormonal
phthalates in sprays to which pregnant women may be exposed,
and have been incriminated as a cause of congenital
abnormalities in their male infants.
Of critical importance is the protection of clients and,
even more so, their stylists by establishing efficient
ventilation of salons, and their workstations. The
efficiency of this ventilation should conform to certified
national standards.
Information on all ingredients in all products used in
salons, including their risks and recommended safety
precautions, should be detailed and made readily available
to all stylists in standard Material Safety Data Sheets.
This information is legally required by the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration for all workplaces with ten
or more employees. However, this requirement is observed
more in the breach than the performance. This information
should also be made readily available to clients.
Pressure sprays should be banned. They release very fine
particles which are readily inhaled into the depths of the
lungs and can irritate and cause toxic effects. Pump spray
products are very much safer as their particles are at least
tenfold larger, and large enough to be filtered out through
the nose. Polyvinyl pyrrolidine, a common ingredient in hair
sprays, is designed to increase smoothness and flexibility
of the hair. However, it can cause chronic lung damage and
should be banned.
Finally, eyeliners, skin lightening creams, and some brands
of mascara used in salons, besides being available for
purchase in beauty supply stores, contain mercury as a
preservative. However, even small doses of mercury
accumulate and can cause neurological damage following long
term exposure.
Chairman
Cancer Prevention Coalition
Chicago, IL
312-996-2297
