Sexy, Sustainable Hair Color: Palette by Nature
Palette by Nature Permanent Hair Color ($24)
Do you dye your hair? After a flirtation with magenta Manic Panic in high school, most ecoistas we know go au natural until a certain age, when a spate of silver tresses make them reach for a bottle of dye to help retain that “natural” look.
But can hair dye really make you sick? Well, duh. Flip over a box of hair dye and read the ingredients. Coal tar, peroxide, benzene, ammonia, toluene, paraphenylenediamine—do these things sound healthy to you? All hold a special place in our Big List of Things That Suck, and even the FDA warns that conventional hair dyes can cause respiratory problems, hair loss and skin irritation—among other problems.
Some gnarly chemicals like lead acetate—listed as a carcinogen in California—are actually banned for cosmetic use in the European Union; lead acetate is a neurotoxin that can actually cause fetal mortality. Think about what that stuff does to the ecosystem when it goes down the drain.
But what’s a graying green girl to do—aside from learning to love her true colors? We love Palette By Nature, a purely botanical line that features both permanent colors and semi-permanent blending systems to wash that gray right out of your hair. Literally.
Free of ammonia, parabens and a whole host of other baddies, Palette By Nature is also infused with organic herbal active extracts like ginseng, honeysuckle and calendula, making it the only 100% natural hair dye with 50% organic ingredients.
And lest you think this is just marketing, PBN is approved by American Contact Dermatitis Society (ACDS) and MAYO clinic CARD Database (Contact Allergen Replacement Database) as one of the safest alternatives to conventional hair color for chemically sensitive people.
Take that, Clairol.
