Evaluation of some currently used natural products efficiency for using as hair dyes

Abstract

Hair dyes are one of the mostly used series of cosmetic products. These products are categorized in synthetic and natural hair dyes. The most currently used hair dyes in the market are synthetic dyes especially permanent types. Based on many scientific reports, these dyes have many serious health problems including local and systemic side effects which make them unsafe and thus, the natural hair dyes are especially noticed by scientists in recent years. Materials and Methods: The herbal sourced dyes were prepared from aqueous and hydro-alcoholic (70/30 ethanol/Water) extracting from various parts of plants including Henna, Chamomile, Tea and Madder by maceration method with continuous agitation, filtering and drying in 40◦C. Solution, gel and cream bases were used as the base of dye formulations. The natural uncolored human hairs are used as hair samples and various dye formulations were compared in several points of views such as dying efficacy, coverage ability and their resistant against washing process. Various dye fixators with different concentrations were used and their effects on durability of dyes were evaluated. Results: Some of the tested hair dye formulations were shown good dying ability, hair coverage and durability on bleached human hairs. The best coverage was seen by chamomile extract. Combination of different dyes was produced the wide range of colors on the hairs comparable with synthetic colors spectrum. Some of the fixators showed excellent efficacy on increasing durability of colors against washing with detergents. Conclusion: Formulations of natural hair dyes with optimized concentrations of natural dyes and fixators can show the good dying efficacy and lower side effects than synthetic dyes. These formulations are safer than the currently used synthetic dyes and have less undesirable effects on hair structure in compared with them.