Hair Colourants

Abstract

Hair colourants today form an important group of products and are prepared for use at home or at the hairdressing salon. Colouring or tinting of hair is, however, by no means a modern cosmetic refinement since it was practised in a crude form from earliest antiquity. It is, for instance, well-known that Egyptian women used kohl, probably a naturally occurring lead sulphide (galena), to give a black colour to the hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. Henna was also used to obtain auburn tints. During the Roman era, several other useful plants had been discovered which were used for obtaining a wider range of hair tints. For instance, Lysimachia was used for imparting a blond tint, by far the most esteemed colour amongst the Romans. This plant was discovered by King Lysimachus of Thrace, a contemporary of Alexander the Great. Botanists have since identified this plant as the purple willow-herb, Lythrum salicaria. L. Hypericon, known also as Corisson, was used to dye the hair black. This plant is believed to be the perforated St. John’s Wort, Hypericon perforatum L. Other plants yielding a black dye were Ophrys, the eyebrow plant, now believed to be Ophrys ovata or bifolia, L., and Polemonium caeruleum, L. This latter plant was boiled in oil and the extract used to impart blackness to the hair.