True Roots: What Quitting Hair Dye Taught Me about Health and Beauty - Hardcover

Citron-Fink, Ronnie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1610919424 ISBN 13: 9781610919425

Verlag: Island Press, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Like 75% of American women, Ronnie Citron-Fink dyed her hair, visiting the salon every few weeks to hide gray roots in her signature dark brown mane. She wanted to look attractive, professional, young. Yet as a journalist covering health and the environment, she knew something wasn’t right. All those unpronounceable chemical names on the back of the hair dye box were far from natural. Were her recurring headaches and allergies telltale signs that the dye offered the illusion of health, all the while undermining it?

So after twenty-five years of coloring, Ronnie took a leap and decided to ditch the dye. Suddenly everyone, from friends and family to rank strangers, seemed to have questions about her hair. How’d you do it? Are you doing that on purpose? Are you OK? Armed with a mantra that explained her reasons for going gray—the upkeep, the cost, the chemicals—Ronnie started to ask her own questions.

What are the risks of coloring? Why are hair dye companies allowed to use chemicals that may be harmful? Are there safer alternatives? Maybe most importantly, why do women feel compelled to color? Will I still feel like me when I have gray hair?

True Roots follows Ronnie’s journey from dark dyes to a silver crown of glory, from fear of aging to embracing natural beauty. Along the way, readers will learn how to protect themselves, whether by transitioning to their natural color or switching to safer products. Like Ronnie, women of all ages can discover their own hair story, one built on individuality, health, and truth.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ronnie Citron-Fink

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

True Roots

What Quitting Hair Dye Taught Me about Health and Beauty

By Ronnie Citron-Fink

ISLAND PRESS

Copyright © 2019 Ronnie Citron-Fink
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61091-942-5

Contents

Foreword by Dominique Browning, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1: Hair Is Life, 
Chapter 2: Hair-Raising Salons, 
Chapter 3: The Beauty of Authenticity, 
Chapter 4: Romancing the Consumer, 
Chapter 5: Who's Looking Out for Us?, 
Chapter 6: Dumping Dye Down the Drain, 
Chapter 7: The Road to Change, 
Chapter 8: A Greener Shade of Gray, 
Chapter 9: Polishing the Silver, 
Chapter 10: Silver Linings, 
Acknowledgments, 
Bibliography, 

CHAPTER 1

Hair Is Life

How'd you do it? Are you doing that on purpose? Are you okay? Ever since I stopped coloring my silver hair, I've gotten a lot of questions. One of the most common during my hair transition was Why are you letting it go gray? While my roots didn't ask permission before they stopped growing in dark brown, it was a complex mix of fear and determination that rearranged my beauty priorities. The question of why — why, after twenty-five years of using chemical dyes, I gave them up — is something I've thought about a lot.

My world began to shift four years ago. I was sitting in a meeting about toxics reform in Washington, DC, when an environmental scientist began to describe the buildup of chemicals in our bodies. As she rattled off a list of ingredients in personal care products — toluene, benzophenone, stearates, triclosan — my scalp started to tingle. "We're just beginning to understand how these chemicals compromise long-term health," she concluded.

None of this was new information. As a journalist, I report on the intersection of health and the environment. I know that the soaps, shampoos, and lotions we use every day have been linked to threats such as hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer. I know that since World War II, more than eighty thousand new chemicals have been invented. And while most people assume that the chemicals in our products have been tested and proven safe, I know that isn't the case. Time and time again, I've seen regulators fail to protect the health of citizens. Yet all that knowing didn't stop me from availing myself of the alchemical wonders of hair dye.

Frankly, coloring just seemed normal. My mother still dyed her hair a coppery brown at age eighty-eight, my best friend went to the colorist every few weeks, and even my daughter dabbled with highlights. It's no surprise that I didn't — and still don't — know many women who forgo coloring; 75 percent of women in the United States use hair dye. Like many, I colored with the hope of "natural-looking" hair, spending hours and hours, and thousands of dollars per year, at the salon.

Over the years, I'd pushed aside fears about the possible dangers of dye. After visits to the hairdresser, my scalp would itch, which I chalked up to dryness, and I would get headaches, which I blamed, like almost all other ailments during my childbearing years, on hormones. When I scratched my head, dye would stain my fingernails for days after application. A small price to pay for beauty, I rationalized. I simply did not want to think about the noxiously charged question Is hair dye safe?

A young colleague at the toxics meeting was more skeptical. Wiping the lipstick from her unlined lips, she asked, "Why do we subject our bodies to questionable chemicals?" I could personally attest to the scientist's answer: "People ignore potential risks for convenience, cost, beauty. Many of these products promise a fountain of youth."

After the presentation, our group of mostly women discussed the health compromises people make "to look young and feel good." Scanning a handout with a long list of chemicals in personal care products, I decided it was past time to stop burying my beautifully dyed head in the sand. "How do I go about researching the toxicity of hair dye and its effects on me and others?" I asked.

The scientist's answer led me to the journey that would become this book. "The economic success of hair coloring collides so powerfully with popular demand that the task of understanding the landscape goes beyond science and law," she said. "Investigate that, and you'll find some answers that address the safety of hair dye."

* * *

In Japan, there's a saying, "A girl's hair is her life." It's a sign of female strength. Hair is a powerful expression of not only who we are but also who we aspire to be. It was against this backdrop that I came to love my long, thick dark hair. It was my most coveted beauty asset, a signature that told the world that I was unique and fun-loving and that I cared about a youthful appearance.

I owe that identity, in no small part, to my mother. Mom recalls having her hair braided by her own mother and living through World War II, when hairstyles were tailored and utilitarian. In her teens, she started to develop her own style. By the mid-1950s, when I made her a mother, Vogue had declared "hats and hair accessories as the must-have accoutrements of the day, while styling products hit the market."

She told me, "Hair is always important. It tells if you are well-kept and fashionable." I've been reminded of this my whole life, by her and by others. But my definition of "well-kept" differs wildly from my mom's. Ever since she had my long hair cut into a pixie when I was a child, to "make it easier to comb through," I started to create my own hair identity, which was (and still is) long.

By the time I was a teenager, I was doing what most teenage girls do — push their mother's buttons. I wanted to fit in with what was in vogue with my hippie-chic girlfriends. Finding a space to display teenage defiance, I pushed my hair obsession constantly.

It was the bane of Mom's existence. "Why must you bring your hairbrush to the dinner table?" she nagged.

Her admonishments came with a laundry list of dinnertime hair rules: no fidgeting with hair, brushes off the table, punctuated with "Hairstyling belongs in the bathroom."

Probably to annoy my mom, I didn't pay much attention to her Emily Post–like commands. This became an ongoing family joke between my brother and me, until my father lit up his cigarette before the rest of us reached for our dessert plates. Then Mom turned a disapproving gaze toward him for asphyxiating us with Chesterfield plumes. Horrified that he might billow smoke rings into my freshly washed tresses, I grabbed my brush, pushed my chair back from the table, and fled into my room.

To this day, I wonder why my mother imposed rules that only drove her into a tizzy. Did she think of the hairbrush as a dirty, germy object, while I equated brushing with cleanliness? Or was it just a maternal sense of control, just as her hair, a hair-sprayed helmet that towered to an unnatural height, was strangely untouchable to me?

Wanting to have nothing to do with hair that neither wind nor atomic bomb could penetrate, I brushed my smooth, polished straight hair incessantly to a shimmery shine that swung across my shoulders like Cher's. I also learned to keep my head far away from aerosols. Possible early nod to environmental health awareness? Doubtful. More like teenage rebellion against the sleek, hard crust of older women's hairstyles of that era.

I blame Veronica Lodge from the Archie Comics for sparking my hair obsession. Of course, she was also called Ronnie. With her...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Island Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1610919424
• ISBN 13: 9781610919425
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 180
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland