Dyeing for beauty: Hair dyes can cause low sperm count, bladder cancer

Kenyans just love dyeing their hair, especially urbanites, musicians and comedians. While the trend turns heads, the chemicals used in hair dyes could have several harmful side-effects, including low sperm count in men.

Kevin Mwanzia has been a barber in Nairobi for 14 years and attends to about 18 customers per week, most of them for hair dye services and who return “after two weeks to apply hair dye. I often advise clients to use water-based hair dyes because they contain fewer chemicals and are also natural, this prevents irritation of the scalp.”