My natural hair colour is brown. A light-mid brown, the type that indicates being blonde as a child, the type some people call ‘mousy’ or ‘dishwater’.

I’ve been dying my hair various colours for over 15 years. At university it was bright blonde, then every shade all the way to almost black. When I left university and got a corporate job I started highlighting it, and I’ve been highlighting it 3-4 times a year ever since.

Then earlier this year I got it dyed my natural colour, with the aim to grow out all the bleach and then never dye my hair again, embracing the natural ageing process of my hair and eliminate the environmental impact of the toxins in hair dye.

Chemicals in hair dye can contribute in all sorts of ways to human health and our environment. You only need to walk into a salon to smell that none of these products are natural! One common group of chemicals found in hair dyes are called aromatic amines, such as p-phenylenediamine (PPD) and toluene-2,5-diamine. These chemicals have been linked to environmental pollution and can be toxic to aquatic life when they enter water systems.

There’s also some evidence that hair dye is harmful to human health. There’s been a link to an increase in breast cancer in women who use hair dye, and in bladder cancer and gestational diabetes in hair colourists administering these products.

I still love going to the hairdressers. While the smell is starting to feel really unnatural and now gives me a headache, I enjoy the human connection and the pampering. I’ll have a few more goes of re-dying it my natural colour as the bleach grows out, and then I’ll be a scissors only girl as I wait to see the greys appear.