I'm a graphic designer and need your help!

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with your hair.

To be honest, the majority of people on this forum aren't likely to give you the sort of anti hair dye opinions you seem to be looking for. Sure bleach is damaging to hair, but most people here have hair that is in good condition due to education about how to safely bleach and dye hair.

It's pretty common knowledge that processing hair causes damage. I'm not sure what a campaign about the damage that dying hair can cause would achieve unless it also gave information on how to safely dye hair.

If you don't mind my asking, how are you planning to run this campaign? Who is the target audience?

Edit to add: janineb basically said what I was trying to convey more eloquently 🙂

One of the things we promote here is sensible hair dying. There are dangers to hair dying and some much, much worse than hair breakage (serious reactions to PPDs, severe chemical burns) all of which we can advice on avoiding. Hair breakage is cosmetic.

However, hair dying can be very safe if you deal with it in the right way. It can turn out how you want it, or can be fixed if it doesn't turn out quite as expected.

I find more people mess up their hair these days now you tube exists. There's some horrible, actually dangerous, advice there. Kids these days are actually more likely to make stupid errors than they used to be. We try to help counteract that.

It would be far more helpful if you learnt what you SHOULD do and promote that rather than only the dangers of hair dye and how you might get some hair breakage. There's far worse things than having short hair.

I agree with Marthakins and Janineb. There are inherent dangers to lots of things if you aren't educated and sensible about them. In any case, there are lots of types of hair dyes and lots of ways of formulating them. Most people here use direct dyes which are non-damaging.

I am currently making a campaign to speak about the damages hair dye causes and spread awareness

I suggest researching the history and background of hair dyes before you form an opinion and only want feedback that supports that opinion. That is called bias and will do you no favors in business and in life. I'm sorry you had a bad experience but perhaps educating people about the dangers of YouTube or impulsivity might be a greater service.

One of the things we promote here is sensible hair dying. There are dangers to hair dying and some much, much worse than hair breakage (serious reactions to PPDs, severe chemical burns) all of which we can advice on avoiding. Hair breakage is cosmetic.

However, hair dying can be very safe if you deal with it in the right way. It can turn out how you want it, or can be fixed if it doesn't turn out quite as expected.

I find more people mess up their hair these days now you tube exists. There's some horrible, actually dangerous, advice there. Kids these days are actually more likely to make stupid errors than they used to be. We try to help counteract that.

It would be far more helpful if you learnt what you SHOULD do and promote that rather than only the dangers of hair dye and how you might get some hair breakage. There's far worse things than having short hair.

Thank you. Yes I've looked a hell of a lot into a lot of things around hair dye and I do accept that people will do whatever they want to their hair and I will do a bit of work around the ways to do it safely but the thing with dye is that it will always cause damage whether done safely or not. I want to aim the project at younger people under the age of 18 to avoid them starting to dye their hair so young as its a serious thing to be putting chemicals on your hair that permanently changes your natural pigment and breaks down all the natural barriers. As you have all said to look at the positives I will try but there is a lot of positivity out there about hair dye, not only on social medias like Instagram who boost it a lot but all dye advertisement is positive and on the DIY boxes there is no information on the long lasting damage. My job as a designer is to shock and get peoples attention. Thank you for the feedback guys please keep it coming!

If you don't mind my asking, how are you planning to run this campaign? Who is the target audience?

Target audience will be young girls majorly. I want to make an impact on the fact that DIY hair dye kits don't tell the full truth about the real long lasting damage caused by dye and bleach. I've always been a fan of hair dye and all the amazing colours you can dye hair so I will definitely look into teaching how to care for your hair properly, however as a designer I need to shock people and create a campaign people won't forget so there does need to be an element of blunt truth about dye. Thank you guys this is really helpful!!!!

Moderator combined posts.

Everyone knows dye damages your hair. This seems a tad unnecessary.

on the DIY boxes there is no information on the long lasting damage.

There isn't long lasting damage with hair dye. Short of giving yourself serious chemical burns, there just isn't. Serious chemical burns are not common.

its a serious thing to be putting chemicals on your hair that permanently changes your natural pigment and breaks down all the natural barriers

Hair is dead once it leaves the scalp. Any damaged hair eventually grows out. It's not even possible to have a single hair for more than 7 years and even that's not common, the average life span of a single hair is 2-7 years. So for some people, all the damage will be gone after 2 years. I would guess the most common length of hair is from shoulder to bra strap length, meaning damage will have been cut off long before that. So, dye permanently changes the colour of the hair it's dyed, but it grows out. It isn't lifetime permanent. It doesn't change pigment. Bleach, or peroxide in hair dye, removes natural colour molecules. Dye then adds colour molecules. It's often not as permanent as you'd think either. Removal of colour is, but even permanent dyes often slip out of the hair and so fade.

"Shocking" people into believing that dye is so horrible it causes permanent damage is very irresponsible. It's like the campaigns that tell people drugs are ALL bad and they WILL kill you. Drugs are quite bad in general and they can kill you. But it's unlikely they will. And when people then use them and find out, actually, this feels amazing and I'm not dead... they lose faith in what they were told.

Also, it's not that there's work arounds to using dyes safely, many are entirely safe (assuming one doesn't have a PPD allergy) and the others are totally safe (again short of allergies) if used correctly. That is not work arounds.

If you really have to do this campaign then do it on how to dye hair safely. However, you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of how dying works and what hair actually is and how dying affects it, so I'm not really sure how you could do anything either way.

As you have all said to look at the positives I will try but there is a lot of positivity out there about hair dye, not only on social medias like Instagram who boost it a lot but all dye advertisement is positive

And so there is. But there's also a TON of bad information out there. Many people do idiotic things. They ignore the boxes (which have the info needed on them, there isn't lasting damage once it's grown out, so it doesn't need to mention it) and that's where problems happen.

Of course dye advertising is positive. It'd be a pretty poor advert for a product if it weren't.

The blunt truth is yes it damages your hair but people know this, but there are ways of doing it to prevent as much damage as possible. I feel like it's a little OTT trying to shock people when as Marthakins has said, everyone knows that dyes damage to some extent.