Hair Dye in History

There is nothing new about hair dye and the principle of using it to change the color of hair. In ancient times, people all over the then-known world used extracts from plants and other organic materials to change and enhance the color of their hair. Today we use many different types of hair dye and related ingredients - some of which have been used for centuries and some of which have more recent origins.

The early Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, Persians, Chinese and Hindu people are all believed to have used some sort of hair colorings. Herbal preparations were made using various concoctions that contained, for example:

  • Plants from the mullein species of the figwort family.
  • Bark from the birch tree which peels off really easily and can be quickly processed.
  • Saffron, a deep-gold aromatic and pungent spice that is made from the dried stigma of a type of crocus plant. Saffron is now more commonly used to color and flavor food (although this is becoming even less common due to its excessively high price worldwide).
  • Turmeric, another golden-hued cooking spice, sometimes called the poor man's saffron. Extracted from the rhizome of an Asian plant from the ginger family, turmeric is commonly used in Indian curries, and was widely used as a fabric dye in decades past.
  • Myrrh, an aromatic, sweet-smelling gum-resin that comes from various Asian and African trees.
  • Henna, a red-brown dye that has been used traditionally in some parts of the world (most famously by the Hindus in India) to dye both hair and the body. It is still used as a hair dye today as well as for body tattoos.

There were also ancient traditional materials that were used to bleach hair. Material included rock alum (a natural chemical), quicklime and wood ash, amongst others. Long before man began to produce commercial hair dyes, a wide range of plant extracts were used to color hair – and in fact fabrics as well. Indigo (a dark blue natural dye that was originally obtained from plants, but is now made synthetically) was commonly combined with henna to create shades of brown and black. Chamomile (a strongly-scented plant from the daisy family, with tiny white flowers, that has been used medicinally since the Middle Ages) was often used to make hair lighter.

Many hair dyes that were derived from plants were also mixed together with metal extracts to make hair colorants. When hydrogen peroxide (which is now widely recognized as a bleaching agent and antiseptic) was discovered in the early 1800s, it laid the foundation for the first "modern" hair colorants. It is of course a powerful bleach, and so it quickly became the most commonly used hair lightener there was.

Peroxide was first marketed by a Parisian hairdresser and London chemist in the mid-19th century, in the form of a hairdressing product that contained 3% of the bleach. Decades later, in 1888, a German scientist, E. Erdmann patented a product called para-phenylenediamine. It was intended as a dye for fur, feathers and also hair. But for hair, a very weak solution was used, and this was mixed with caustic soda, sodium carbonate or ammonia – all of which are harsh chemicals, and none of which would have done the hair any good at all! Nevertheless, ammonia is still used in some hair dyes today.

A French chemist, Eugene Schuller, was reputedly the first to create what was considered to be a "safe" commercial hair color product, and he used para-phenylenediamine to make it.

But it is a French hairdresser, Gaston Boudou, who gets the credit for marketing the world's first so-called "standardized" range of hair dyes. Up until his innovation, hairdressers had mixed up hair dyes in their salons for immediate use. What he did was to have a range of "predictable" hair dyes manufactured, so that clients knew exactly what they would get.

Boudou produced a range of some 18 colors, ranging from light blonde to black. Not only were they popular in Europe, but he exported them to the USA with great success. But there was one problem; the dyes were amino-based, and a large number of users had allergic reactions. The dyes also generally called for a first-step bleaching process, which was time consuming and had to be done correctly.

In 1950, Clairol released the world's first "one-step" hair dye that lead the way for a burgeoning hair dye industry. It is reported that from this time, the percentage of US women dying their hair grew from a mere 8% to close on 50% by the early 1970s.

Today the hair dye industry is enormous, and you will find an incredible range of products from which to choose. These include both chemical-based and organic formulas, some of which are permanent, others semi-permanent, and still others intended to be simply temporary. The choice is yours.