Is it safe to color my hair during pregnancy?

While it’s almost 100 degrees outside here in NYC, I’m being 28 weeks pregnant, and what’s definitely not safe is to go outside too far from the AC. That’s why I decided to write a post.  And of course I want to talk about something that’s bothering me the most  – pregnancy 🙂

It’s been years since women gained lots of the new rights in the package with lots of new responsibilities . And if 100 years ago women during pregnancy didn’t go out much, it’s totally different now. We not only allowed to go out, but also we’re functioning in the society with little or no credit for our condition.

So yeah. The question of  whether I can color my hair or not was bothering me from the day one I saw the stripy pregnancy test. I wanna give you warning – I’m not a doctor and all I’m gonna share next  is my personal opinion and experience. If you decide to color your hair during pregnancy, you should consult your caregiver. He/she will probably tell you the same thing mine told me – There’s no studies that proves absolute safety of coloring your hair during pregnancy, but there’s also no record of any harm or potential reproductive risks. So he pretty much told me the decision is up to me as well as the responsibility for the consequences.

This is my second pregnancy and I colored my hair both times. My logic was simple. If any harm was ever caused by coloring chemicals – they would put giant tag on each box “Do not use during pregnancy”. C’mon this is America and they even put “Caution might contain hot beverage” on the coffee cup. If it were even slight chance or possibility of a law suit, this would be on the box.

Second, the amount of chemicals that can penetrate to your body though scalp is so little, that if I would follow that logic of avoiding all the possible chemical harms I would have to give up my NYC fresh morning smog and move to the countryside, where I would wash my clothes in the river avoiding laundry detergent and clean house with backing soda. No make-up too, no nail polish, no computer, no cell phone and no microwave, no work stress and only fresh organic food, and rest, and fresh countryside air. No fast food ever. Yes, in a perfect world I would do that, but unfortunately I live now in the 21st century. And I can’t afford to look like shit.

Damon was doing my hair since like forever and he recommended I’d do the highlights i.e. foils. That way color (or bleach) won’t touch the scalp, so the chances of any harm are minimum. Heavy foils would also work if you need to cover grays, but too afraid to put color on your skin.
And everything in my life would be perfect if I wasn’t happen to be in the beauty school that time 🙂  I really wanted to be platinum blonde again cause I was feeling whiny and fat, and like my young life full of opportunities was slipping away from me. So i let not very conscious hairdresser_to_be to do my hair. It’s the whole different story how I ended up with a short green hair, but I figured some simple rules if I decide to answer “yes” to “Can I color my hair while pregnant?” question.

My white hair started to break after every shampoo 😦

Here they are:

1. Do it with a hairdresser you trust. It’s not a good time to check out this new guy your friend has been talking about. It’s very important to go to the person who knows you and cares about you

Damon had to cut off good 5 inches of burned hair. I fixed the color to strawberry blond – more sophisticated and easier to maintain

2. Don’t go for  drastic change. Even if you feel like giant hungry monster and you need a big change in your life, remember  -it’s just hormones, wait for a day, eat some ice cream, look in the mirror again – see, you are still pretty!

Before and after (why the hell did i do it?)

3. Do foils. It’s definitely nice not to feel guilty for doing something that bad 🙂 your grandma won’t even speak to you.

4. Simple rule not only for pregnant women. Don’t do it yourself and don’t do it at home. First of all, there’s much better ventilation in the salon and you don’t want to breath in all this fumes. Second, the color you see on the picture might not come out the way it look, because of the hormonal boom that’s happening in your body. While it’s not mandatory, it might happen. At least if it happens in the salon, hairdresser would have to fix it right away.

How about a nice green instead?

5. Don’t stress yourself too much! If even accessional glass of wine is ok, to color hair while pregnant should be fine too.

To be continued…