HWN Suggests

Hairdresser Health: Risks & Remedies

You make your jobs look easy. You put on smiles, exude graciousness and hospitality, and make clients feel like the center of the universe. But your job is far from easy. Being a hairdresser is a difficult career path, and in fact, it’s downright dangerous with painful and poisonous health problems facing your body and mind...In America, there are 156 chemicals used in beauty products that are 100% illegal in Australia and Europe. Every day, stylists are exposed to chemicals in hair dyes, keratin treatments, perms, and more. Exposure in small amounts may be innocuous, but health risks can be directly attributed to the compounding effects of consistent chemical exposure.

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Featured

 Hairdressers of the world unite against hidden dangers of the salon

Asthma, arthritis and even cancer are occupational hazards – but Britain has helped block EU safety rules.

 The hidden health risk of having your hair washed

Share article Print article Going to the hairdresser is often considered a relaxing, pampering experience, but a rare condition known as beauty parlor stroke syndrome (BPSS) can, for a small number of people, make a shampoo at the hairdresser’s a serious health threat. How could a trip to the hairdresser turn into a health emergency? Research suggests that sitting at an awkward angle at the backwash basins used for hair washing in many salons can cause neck pain, injury and – on very rare occasions – even a life-threatening stroke. BPSS was first identified in 1993 by American Neurologist, Michael Weintraub, who found that some of his patients had developed severe stroke-related symptoms after having their hair shampooed during a visit to a hairdresser.

Articles of Interest

Dangerous beauty: Salon worker health is in the spotlight

The Professional Beauty Association, a Scottsdale, AZ-based organization representing salon professionals, said in a statement that it “actively works with leading manufacturers to ensure products are safe for use and improve working conditions in salons across the U.S.” In the meantime, experts say employers can help workers by purchasing safer products – particularly those lacking the “toxic trio” of toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate – and providing information, adequate ventilation and personal protective equipment.

Detangling the roots and health risks of hair relaxers

For decades, Black women have been using hair relaxers to help them “fit into” global mainstream workplaces and the European standards of beauty that continue to dominate them. More recently, research has linked these relaxers to cancer and reproductive health issues — and a spate of lawsuits across the United States, and at least one in Canada, have been brought by Black women against the makers of these relaxants.

Hair Salon Ergonomics: How to Avoid Long-Term Musculoskeletal Stressors

Many people probably don’t equate hair salons with risks associated with physical, back-breaking work. When it comes to workplace hazards for cosmetologists, beauticians, and aestheticians, we might first think about the potential dangers associated with exposure to chemicals and other cancer-causing substances. Ensuring proper workplace ventilation and providing workers with needed personal protective equipment (PPE) can help to reduce the risks of exposure to chemicals such as ammonia in hair dyes, phenylenediamine (PPD), sodium hydroxide, and formaldehyde. However, hair stylists and others who work in salons also face potential health risks that come from improper postures associated with their work tasks.

Hair Salons: Facts about Formaldehyde in Hair Products

OSHA has found that some hair smoothing products may contain formaldehyde, may release formaldehyde at levels above OSHA's permissible limits during use, and may be mislabeled, all of which can pose health risks to salon workers.

Hairstylists Have Always Been Mental Health Caretakers. Now, They’re Being Trained for It

PsychoHairapy is just one of a few organizations in the US and abroad that have cropped up in recent years to help hairstylists embrace the care-giving position they hold in society and lean in to their long-held role as “unofficial therapists.” No one knows exactly why people have a tendency to treat their stylists like mental-health counselors (something that 43 percent of hair professionals agree happens with regularity, according to a 2021 survey of 13 million pros by the appointment-booking app Booksy), but there are a lot of theories.

If Looks Could Kill: Carcinogens in Hairdressers’ Blood from Dyes and Perms

Looking fabulous can come at a price—and sometimes that price is unwittingly outsourced to the people who provide these services for a living. A new study of 295 female hairdressers, 32 regular users of hair dyes, and 60 people who get regular hair treatments found that permanent hair dyes and the chemicals used to straighter or curl hair can be carcinogenic to humans. Those with the highest exposure are hairdressers. The researchers found that among hair dressers, carcinogen levels in their blood tended to rise alongside the number of weekly permanent light hair coloring treatments they did.

The Disturbing Truth About Hair Relaxers

They’ve been linked to reproductive disorders and cancers. Why are they still being marketed so aggressively to Black women?

Resources

PsychoHairapy

We lead research on the power of hair as a site of identity, resilience, and emotional care. Our work brings academia, beauty, and mental health together — and makes it accessible for therapists, beauty pros, and educators.