Health Risk Assessment of Dermal Exposure to Heavy Metals Content of Chemical Hair Dyes

Contamination of hair dyes to heavy metals can threaten consumer's health. We investigated the concentrations of some important heavy metals in hair dyes and evaluates their non-carcinogenic effects.

The most commonly used hair dyes were determined through questioners and 32 samples were collected from the market of Tehran in 2014. The concentration of 10 heavy metals (Fe, Ag, Co, Cr, Mn, Ba, Cd, Cu, Pb, and Al) was determined using ICP-MS. Based on the obtained data from distributed questionnaires and Monte Carlo simulation, the exposure to the evaluated heavy metals was estimated. Besides, using hazard quotient (HQ) and chronic hazard (HI), the risk of non-carcinogenic effects of investigated hair dyes consumption was specified.

Results indicated the average concentrations of Al, Ba, and Fe as 0.54, 0.86, and 1.19 mg kg^-1 and those of Cd, Cu, and Pb as 0.45, 61.32, and 185.34 μg kg^-1, respectively. Pb with HQ of 7.46e-4 had the highest risk and Fe with HQ of 3.4e-6 had the lowest level of risk. Among the investigated dyes, the ones made by Iran (HI=2.8e-4) and the dark brown color (HI=1.93e-4) had the highest level of risk among all the studied samples.

Two indices of HI and HQ showed that heavy metal contents in the investigated samples had not probable non-carcinogenic risks for the consumers of these products.