Para-Phenylenediamine

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for raising this debate and raising awareness of what is of course a very serious issue. Many of us have read stories in the newspapers. For example, Sali Hughes wrote in the Guardian that, after attending her hairdresser for 20 years and using hair dye, she suddenly developed an allergy that nearly brought on her death. Raising awareness generally of that possible threat is really important. There have certainly been media stories about it. I would like to repeat the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson: what are the Government able to do to raise awareness, generally, of these risks? These risks are not only in relation to specific products, such as the ingredients that have been mentioned— I am going to continue to use the term PPDs—as people can also develop these reactions even after many years of use. If you do not take into account some of the irritations that you might develop, continual use could cause a much bigger reaction.

I know that a lot of my noble friends, and even the Minister, have been looking at me rather curiously during this debate, because I have been blond all my life, and it is true that I am becoming what in my family we call ash-blond. Okay, I am going to come out about it: I have been tempted to use certain products to keep off that inevitable day when ash-blond will become white. Nevertheless, this is a serious point. I did a bit of research myself, and it is true that an increasing number of men are using such products. What they are not doing is what most women do at some point, which is to go to a hairdresser and see a professional colourist, who does tests and checks. They do not even read the small print. Most men are pretty nonchalant about the use of such products. They certainly would not confess about it or talk about their use, even, on occasion, to their family members.

This is where my research comes in. My husband is Spanish. He is quite dark, but every time he grows a beard it comes out white. His beard is grey, but his head of hair is not. I caught him using a home product, not because he told me but because I noticed certain signs on towels in the bathroom, and thought, “What is this?”. We are not the BBC in here, are we, so I can say that it was a product called Just for Men. He had painted his beard with this product. I am absolutely certain that, while he read the instructions, which are in pretty big print, he did not read the warnings. I looked it up on the internet, and sure enough Just for Men, the product that will make sure that he remains dark in beard, contains PPDs. He is not aware of that and I am sure that, were ongoing use to produce some irritation, there would be no check on that.

I urge the Minister to tell us what more the Government can do, not only at a European level and in terms of the warnings required in EU directives, but also in providing some general guidance in supermarkets and shops: “Read the instructions”, or “Be aware that this might cause a problem”. That is something the Government can do in the short term: link together raising awareness and providing general warnings.

I have suddenly realised that my husband is going to be pretty annoyed with me: I have just outed him as someone who dyes his beard. I will suffer the consequences later.

Another point I wanted to make regards henna tattoos. I do not think that most people who apply these are aware of their contents. They think they are dealing with a natural product. We know that black henna, for example, contains PPD. I have seen the consequences of this myself. I see children being tattooed on the beaches in Spain. At hundreds of flea markets and other places there are children demanding that tattoo from their parents, saying that they will not be satisfied and so on. The Government can do more to advise parents of the possible consequences, and in particular to draw the distinction between the black henna products that give the black tattoo, compared with the normal, natural henna that does not contain PPDs.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, again for raising this debate. It really is important, because we know that if ignored the consequences can be pretty dire, albeit for a very small number of people. However, one death is one death too many.