Friend dreadful reaction to hair dye.

Would henna work 🤔 ?

Thank you everyone. Kugul thank you for the hairband idea. Also for the positive sounding outcome. Will be telling her about your experience. You sound very much like her.

Talked to my hairdresser yesterday about it and she suggested having extensions woven in. Short dark ones at the roots and white longer ones at the point of change so that your friend gets a streaked look, rather like nandad describes in her post above.

I would honestly advise your friend to avoid ALL hair dye after such an awful reaction. It simply isn’t worth the risk to her health.

If your friend is on social media, there’s a lovely private Facebook page called Silver Sisters with women from all over the world who have embraced their natural hair colour. There’s also another private Facebook group called Curly Silvers which deals with the specific challenges of curly grey/silver/white hair.

I’ve attached an image of my hair while it was growing out a few years ago. My hair and scalp are so much healthier now!

I saw a young lady patient of 35 who always had used the same very popular permanent hair dye for years . She came onto my unit with partial thickness burns to her scalp with large painful weeping blisters . She said she had done a patch test . We had to completely shave her head then clean it thoroughly to prevent infection then put a specialist cream on the scalp . The texture was like the crinkly spinach served with Chinese meals , I thought . Black or very dark hair dyes are the worst . The colour difficult to grow out if you have white hair because of the two tone contrast effect . I use an ammonia / hydrogen peroxide free Daniel Field water colour ( the real one) very infrequently (every 3 months) to blend in with my greying , used to be strawberry blond hair so no roots . Very sensitive skin with psoriasis but this has been fine but you never know . If I got an allergy to it would simply stop using it . It only colours white hair . They give advice if you contact them apparently . My former hairdresser friend suggested Ash Blonde in this colour and I mix in just a tiny bit of soft golden blonde it works for me anyway . Am not sure if this is right but I often see older people with very dark dyed hair who have very much thinning hair and I think that could be due to using strong permanent dyes for many years . White hair actually can look beautiful.

They have to have something in to be able to colour the hair. Just because it's classed as "natural" it doesn't mean there will be no reaction to it. Steer clear.

Probably developed an allergy to some ingredient in the dye, may well be in others. What's wrong with being natural!

Probably one option is to have her hair professionally coloured by a hairdresser. They will (or certainly should) insist on a patch test first to ensure there is no bad reaction. Dark brown hair over white isn't a great idea At One's Age as it looks really false. My natural colour used to be close to black but I seem to have become blonde over the last 15 years, (and yes, I've had more fun!) so now I only have a few highlights done so as to embrace the oncoming grey. Patch test though - really important.

NemosMum

pascal30

You can get natural hair dyes , without chemicals..

'Natural' or otherwise, ALL hair dyes contain chemicals, and you can have a reaction to any of them!

PURE hair dyes claim to be completely chemical free.. as do other organic ones

I have very curly hair and I think it made the process of growing out the dye easier as there was no obvious line between the colours. I hope your friend can learn to enjoy the process of growing the colour out. I eventually kind of enjoyed seeing all the different colours.

pascal30

You can get natural hair dyes , without chemicals..

'Natural' or otherwise, ALL hair dyes contain chemicals, and you can have a reaction to any of them!

I had exactly the same reaction a few years ago. I have not been able to dye my hair since and don't like the colour but, unfortunately, have to live with it.

I disagree with the advice to cut the hair short if your friend doesn’t like it. I stopped colouring my hair (which is also curly), as it was making my scalp itchy. I used wide hairbands and hats to cover the roots during the first few months. I avoided hairdressers, as they are in the business of colouring and most of them won’t encourage their clients to have their natural colour.

Once I was past the first 3 or 4 months my hair started looking better with the two colours and I grew it quite long. My hair is now bright, silvery white curls and I receive far more compliments about it than when I dyed it brown.

M0nica

Reading this with hair dye on my hair. No reaction so far.

Fingers crossed!

Reading this with hair dye on my hair. No reaction so far.

Thank you. Good ideas.

Yes cut it short and have it styled really nicely, then the two tones might look intentional. When she has a head of white hair I recommend Provoke, I use this, it is a purple shampoo and conditioner, is not dye, it just highlights the natural white making it silvery.

If she’s been advised by her GP its dangerous Cossy?

She could try out other brands and do the 24 hour patch test first

Thank you for your advice. I will pass all this onto her. It is really a problem for her as her hair is her most striking feature and she is depressed about it. The best thing would be to cut it really short and this would still look good but I know she hates shorthair.

Buy a wig or two, shave off natural hair and wait....

During menopause I took an awful reaction to hair dyes, soap and shampoo. I just stopped dyeing my hair as it quite frightened me the itching etc I developed. My hairdresser at that time said she saw some ladies who although had a reaction to dye, would not stop dyeing their hair and at times she was sending people to their doctor. They seemed to expect the hairdresser to be able to fix it and she never understood why they didn't just stop the colouring. Anyway, I've let mine grow grey/ white. I'm still careful with soaps and shampoos. My hairdresser did say that at college they were taught that you can take an allergy to anything at anytime.

I have curly hair and decided to stop dyeing it in December 2023. My hair normally grows fairly quickly, so I thought it would only take a year or so. Rather strangely a lot of my hair is growing in my natural dark colour so it looks like I have dark streaks in my hair, with the curls it actually looks quite good. My hairdresser was asked how long it took her to do my hair, 30 minutes she replied, as she only cuts it. Your friend may find it quite liberating and actually quite like reverting to her natural colour.

Maybe be careful of highlights in case of more reaction

Squiffy

My DM bought herself a wig, had her hair cut very short and just let her dyed hair gradually grow out until, eventually, she emerged with a lovely head of white hair!

Hey, 👍🏻 good idea.
I once read that dark hair dye contains something unpleasant which can cause a reaction.
The other thing to do is to have it cut slightly shorter in layers and ask the hairdresser to put some silvery blonde highlights through it.