Skin Health Concerns In The Hairdressing Trade
Contact dermatitis, especially on the hands, in hairdressing is very common. It’s been shown that around seventy percent of all those employed as hairdressers display symptoms of work-rated skin damage, such as dermatitis, at some time in their career. The chief indications of dermatitis include dry skin, rash patches, skin irritation, flaking or scaling, split skin – especially on the fingertips – or even blistering. Contact dermatitis, if left untreated, can become very painful. What a lot of hairdressers do not realise is that contact dermatitis is preventable.
It’s important to know that contact dermatitis is not infectious, so you are not at risk of contracting it from another person. Nevertheless, dermatitis can flare up at any time during your working life. Some employed in the hairdressing profession can find themselves continually subjected to its unwanted effects, and others might spend their entire career without suffering any symptoms whatsoever. Everyone is different.
Generally speaking, dermatitis can be split into two types. Each type is different, so it is vital to distinguish exactly what type you suffer from in order to treat it correctly.
Irritant contact dermatitis may occur if you have been in contact with strong chemicals such as bleach. If you are employed to wash people’s hair frequently, this may sometimes cause dermatitis to occur over a prolonged period of time.
Allergic contact dermatitis may develop quite quickly after even minimal contact with substances such as strong hair shampoos or colouring agents. It’s not uncommon for this type of allergy to take months or even years to fully develop after the initial contact. Once contact dermatitis has taken hold, it is likely that it will stay with you forever. Allergic contact dermatitis can rear its ugly head at any time, even if you have no previous medical history of it. If you show indications of reacting adversely to a product in your working environment, it is not uncommon to find that a variety of domestic products such as cleaners, soaps, bleaches etc. will also worsen your allergy.
A dryness of the skin more often than not accompanies the symptoms in most cases of dermatitis.
Dermatitis may be avoided by taking some simple protective measures.
First, use personal protective equipment such as latex-free gloves if you spend a lot of time shampooing, dying or rinsing hair. This will protect your skin, but be aware that it is imperative to change gloves between clients.
Make sure that you dry your hands completely when your skin gets wet. Generally, the trade uses one-use paper towels but a soft, absorbent cotton towel could alternatively be used. Ensure that all the moisture has been soaked up off your skin.
The use of a top quality combined hand barrier cream and moisturiser is also strongly recommended. Make sure that the product that you select is water repellent and is formulated to be used in tandem with gloves. When possible, use the same cream in your domestic setting as well as in your professional capacity and use it according to the manufacturer’s recommendations which usually advise using it just before retiring to bed.
For most people, it is relatively easy to stop contact dermatitis at source if you are a hairdresser. To you, it may seem that these tips are too simple to work. However, 74% of those employed in the hairdressing trade surveyed, offered the opinion that they found that they could still manipulate their clients hair as required, and that they would observe all, or some of, these guidelines for water-based tasks in the future. Hence, if you are prone to contact dermatitis, make sure that you take the appropriate steps to improve your skin condition and stop it from coming back.
Disclaimer: This posting is based on information freely available in the popular press and medical journals that deal with dermatitis. Nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed to be any sort of medical advice. For medical advice the reader should consult with his or her physician or other medical specialist.










