Hair Colouring - Health and Beauty

Hair colouring has becomes a trend nowadays. Women got bored with the same colour hair for years and would like to change it just like changing their purse or their shoes. Dyeing hair with natural products is beneficial for health while the same with dyeing chemicals are harmful. Researches have found that dyeing hair with chemicals can be the cause of cancer.

There are 2 types of hair dyer available in market. One is made from natural ingredients and another one is chemicals. Concern about the chemical ingredients in hair dyer. In chemical and paint industry lead is commonly being used, lead acetate is use in most in hair dyer. Leads are high metallic element and very harmful for human body. Surely lead acetate is harmful and caution for any internal use.

There are several types of hair colouring.
1. Temporally hair colour
The pigment molecules in temporary hair colour are large and can easily removed with a single showering.
2. Semi-permanent hair colour
This hair dyer has smaller pigment molecule compare to the temporally hair dyer. For this reason, colour will remain for repeated washing, about 4-5 shampoos. Semi-permanent hair dyer contain no developer, peroxide or ammonia and therefor less harm for damaged hair. However, it may still contain toxic compound, for example P-Phenylenediamine.
3. Permanent hair colour
This product contain both a developer (usually hydrogen peroxide) or oxidizing agent and an alkalizing agent, ammonia. When the alkalizing compound combine with the developer, the peroxide become alkaline and diffuses into hair fibre entering the cortex where the melanin is located. Lightening occurs when peroxide breaks up the melanin and replace it with a new colour. The ammonia opens the cuticle of the hair to allow the color pigments to penetrate deep into the hair shaft. This kind of dyer is truly permanent and would not wash out.

How would hair dyer affect our health? Scalp is a sensitive part of human body. Since the base of hair is scalp, dyeing hair may cause allergic reaction. Symptoms of these reactions can include redness, sores, itching, burning sensation and discomfort. Dyeing hair may also causing hair breakage. Since hair has been damaged by chemical, this bring effect in dry, rough and fragile hair. Treatment maybe available to keep the healthy hair but most efficient solution is to stop the use of chemical hair dyer. The other effect of hair dyeing is skin discoloration. Skin and fingernails are made of the same type of keratin protein as hair. Drips and slips of extra hair tint around the hairline can result in patches of discolored skin.

Dyeing hair may cause cancer! As mentioned above, lead acetate can be potentially toxic.
Recently, a human carcinogen, 4-ABP was being found in some hair dyer. Not only the person who is applying hair dyer on his/her hair, but hair professionals or hair stylists are also at the risk.

Battery Pollution Endangers the Evnironment

Batteries are everywhere nowadays. They are in cell phone, electric toothbrush clock and literally in dozens of other devices around home and workplace. However, widespread use of batteries has bring many environmental problems. Of course, chemicals are not all equally toxic. The three worst "baddies" in battery are lead, cadmium and mercury. Other battery compounds like silver, zinc, and nickel can also be problems, but less so.

As we know, batteries don't last forever. The discarded batteries actually created many environmental concerns. Chemicals contain in batteries are a significant source of contaminants. These batteries are divided into several types, each with their own potential toxic elements. The two most common batteries types are alkaline and carbon or zinc. Batteries contain 20-50%of mercury according to Utah Department of Environmental Quality, ''Pollution Prevention Fact Sheet''.
When discarded batteries buried in landfills, batteries casing will corrode. Thus, may causing the mercury leak into land and heavy metal leach into soil and groundwater. Thus eventually into the food chain and drinking water supply. Up to 80% of mercury runoff from landfills is from batteries alone according to Marc Lecard.

What we have to do to all the dead batteries? The proper way is to recycle them. Batteries enable our mobility, so it is likely society will be using lots more batteries in the future. Thus, to ensure that we're not slowly poisoning our environment, it is important that we do a good job of recycling batteries.