Hair dyes used by millions of women are linked to chemicals that can cause cancer

Hair dyes used by millions of women contain chemicals linked to cancer, British scientists have warned.

They say that both home hair colouring kits and the dyes used at expensive salons pose a potential risk to health, Daily Mail reports.

Writing in a respected scientific journal, they say chemicals in permanent hair dyes can react with tobacco smoke and other pollutants in the air to form one of the most powerful cancer-causing compounds known to man.

A spokesman for Green Chemicals, which is about to launch its own ‘ultra-safe’ range of hair dyes, said that despite numerous studies of the subject the danger posed by the chemicals in hair dye reacting with the air has been missed or ignored until now.

But manufacturers insisted that the possibility of the chemical reaction has been long known.

Dr Emma Meredith, of the Cosmetic, Toiletry & Perfumery Association, said the law forbids using secondary amines in a form that can react in this way.

George Hammer, the owner of Urban Retreat at Harrods, the world’s largest hair and beauty salon, said: ‘Chemical companies have a huge vested interest in keeping this under wraps.’

The warning is set out in the journal Materials.

In 2009 the Mail revealed that women who use hair dyes more than nine times a year have a 60 per cent greater risk of contracting blood cancer. A year later the European Commission banned 22 hair dyes which put long term users at risk of bladder cancer.