Natural Colorants in Hair Dyeing

Abstract

The desire to influence the individual appearance is as old as mankind itself. Thus coloration of hair and skin is found almost everywhere and numerous cultural expressions of such a habit have been reported.In today's modern societies a considerable share of women and men apply colorants to change the colour of their hair; for example, 75 % of all American women are estimated to dye their hair [1]. In Europe more than 60 % of women and 5-10 % of men colour their hair, with a mean frequency of 6-8 times per year. The market for hair dyes in the EU has been estimated in 2004 at E2.6 billion [2]. Examples for relevant motivations for hair coloration are: -demonstration of individuality by hair colour; -fashion trends and cosmetic aspects; -desire to cover white hair to maintain a youthful appearance.Cosmetologists distinguish hair colorants with regard to the achieved permanence of the dyeing between temporary hair dyes, semi-permanent or permanent hair dyes, which will depend both on the type of dyestuff used and the conditions applied. The main difference is in the number of shampoos the dyeing will last, which ranges from 6 to 12 for semi-permanent colours to permanent dyeings which cannot be washed out.While some traditional coloration of skin and hair is based on the application of pigments from, for example, clay or carbon, the focus of this chapter will be directed on the application of natural dyes to human hair. The colorants will be sorted with regard to their chemical nature and source. Handbook of Natural Colorants Edited

Natural dyeing of wool and hair with indigo carmine (C.I. Natural Blue 2), a renewable resource based blue dye

“…Thus an advanced concept for wider application of natural dyes in wool and hair dyeing would require a blue dye that can be used as direct dye for protein fibers. Furthermore such a dye should exhibit sufficient high dyeing rate and affinity to protein fibers to be useful for the dyeing of hair at physiologically acceptable temperature and pH [16].…”

The use of botanical raw materials in hair dyeing

“…This type of extract prevents the accumulation of minerals on the sur face of the hair, which makes it difficult for the dye to bind with keratin. In order to colour the hair, herbs are most often used in the form of powders, water extracts or seed oils and oily macerates [16,19,21].…”

“…Using this traditional method, besides the lawson, other ingredients are extracted from henna that af fect the final shade of the hair or skin. It is worth adding that due to its low toxic potential, there is a growing interest in the defenseless lawsona itself as a dye in commercial hair dye products [21].…”

Tannin-Mordant Coloration with Matcha (camelia sinensis) and Iron(II)-Lactate on Human Hair Tresses

“…While the polyphenolic compound itself has only a low substantivity to the hair fiber, it is necessary to use metal salts as mordants to increase the affinity by formation of stable colored complexes. [ 5 ] Iron salts, especially iron(II)-lactate, form intensive coloration in combination with polyphenolic compounds in comparison to other metal salts as investigated in our previous work [ 6 ].…”

“…Tannic substances can be extracted from different parts of plants as barks and leaves and also from tea to use it for hair dyeing methods. [ 5 ] All investigations in this work were done with matcha tea powder (camelia sinensis) itself because of the tannic and catechine compounds which are present in the powder.…”