My guest today is Will Simpson, Business Development Manager for Green Circle Salons. We’ll be talking about toxic chemicals you are being exposed to in hair salons, what salons can do to be less toxic, and what you can do to reduce your own exposure as a consumer of salon services. Will is a member of Green Circle Salons, one of the fastest growing environmental movements in North America. With a background in customer service and finance, Will joined Toronto-based Green Circle Salons in 2010. Over the subsequent years, the movement has grown across Canada and into the US, with Will at the helm of customer relations. Green Circle Salons has now achieved an industry-wide presence through its diverse partnerships with salon professionals, manufacturers, and policy makers. Will’s career has been equal parts service and strategy, incorporating unique marketing and business development solutions to create a green space inside of the consumer driven salon/spa industry. Will currently lives in Toronto, where he works within the community to embrace the possibilities of a wholly sustainable lifestyle. www.greencirclesalons.ca
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How Toxic is Your Hair Salon
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Will Simpson
Date of Broadcast: June 04, 2014
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. Now, this is a toxic world so how are we going to live toxic-free? It’s about the decisions that you make about reducing your exposure to toxic chemicals, about removing toxic chemicals from your body. When you do that, you can create your own little piece of the world that is so significantly less toxic than the rest of the world. It makes a huge improvement in your health and your well-being and length of your life and having healthy babies, all those kinds of things that are affected by toxic chemicals. That’s what I mean when I say toxic-free, it’s about you making those decisions for yourself that can result in a toxic-free life for you.
It is Wednesday, June 4th 2014. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida and today we’re going to go on a little outing to the beauty salon. My guest today is from an organization called Green Circle Salons which is actually in Canada but they now have presence all over the United States. What they do is they actually have a little program to help salons reduce their toxic waste. What we’re going to talk about today, what are you going to encounter in terms of toxic exposures when you go to beauty salons and what you can do to be less toxic when you get those hair services.
My guest is Will Simpson, he’s the business development manager for Green Circle Salons and he’s coming to us from Toronto, Canada. Hi Will!
WILL SIMPSON: Hi Debra, thanks so much for having me.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. So tell us about Green Circle Salons, what was the thing that made this organization in the first place?
WILL SIMPSON: Sure. Green Circle Salon started back in 2009, it was launched here in Toronto, Ontario. It was really started because we realized that there is no industry-wide solution for the hundreds of thousands of kilograms of waste that were being dumped down the drain or put into landfill every year. It was essentially started as an industry-wide movement that would enable salons to take responsibilities for all of these wastes being created but also enable the salon guest to ultimately, certainly feel good about the choices they were making in regards to their own beauty services.
DEBRA: So the founders made the decision and put the program together and then you’ve been getting together with salon professionals and manufacturers and policy makers and tell us what happened since the founding.
WILL SIMPSON: Yes, so we started with about 30 salons here in Toronto in 2009. We’ve done double digit growth, month after month ever since then because it’s something that really wants people to hear about. They think that “wow, it’s fantastic”, it’s something that a lot of people know the industry is needed for a long time. Both consumers and salon professionals tell us that all the time because it’s something that—it’s a very visual industry and the ways of being created itself is also very visual.
WILL SIMPSON: Anyway we started in 2009 with 30 salons and the next year we were up to about a hundred salons ad since then we’ve launched here in Canada, we’ve launched in Tibet, British Colombia, Alberta and just recently in Chicago as well. So now we are actually able to service salons all across North America through our program.
DEBRA: That’s really great, so how did you personally get interested in this?’
WILL SIMPSON: I became involved in it because I actually grew up in a sort of green space just North of Toronto and it was very interesting. In my childhood, I actually lived right in an area called the Oak Ridges Moraine and I noticed over time, over about a decade, a lot of painted turtles and frogs in my backyard started to disappear. I’ve always thought that was pretty bizarre. It was an interesting environmental phenomenon that I really can’t put my finger on. That sort of created—it sparked an interest in me, in the ecology.
WILL SIMPSON: Over time, as I grew up, that interest grew from an interest in the ecology to economics in ecology. What does it mean? That some people are making big money from, ignoring environmental consequences and others are making money from creating new environmental solutions and looking for ways that we could be doing business in a better way.
WILL SIMPSON: That informed my personal growth and the direction that I took career-wise, until I ended up with this fantastic team, helping out this industry with their needs.
DEBRA: Well, let’s talk about the industry. I know that you have a program where you’re helping salons safely dispose of their toxic hazardous waste, so where in a salon—is there this waste that needs to be carefully disposed of?
WILL SIMPSON: That’s a good question. Our answer is that we treat the salon as an ecosystem.
DEBRA: Good answer! I love that!
WILL SIMPSON: It’s not just the stuff that’s been going on your head as a salon guest but it’s also the light bulbs up in the ceiling, down to the chemicals that are being used on the floor and everything in between. We believe that this all really does is inform the guest experience as well as the experience the staff members are having, and the owners are having. If you spend decades in salon as a lot of you people do, over that time if you’re making healthy choices that’s really going to help with the longevity of your career. If you’re making unhealthy choices, that’s going to help you age you pre-maturely. So to give you a more solid answer, we tried to—
DEBRA: Give us some details about, like different kinds of products and what kinds of toxic chemicals that are in them, especially the ones that you’re interested in controlling to your program?
WILL SIMPSON: Sure, we don’t think of a—
DEBRA: I’m going to interrupt you in a few minutes because we need to go to break but take all the time you need for this.
WILL SIMPSON: Okay, sure. We don’t really get involved in telling salons which products to use. The reason for that is because, ultimately the salon professional is an artist. It’s like Picasso, what they express unto you. Ultimately, it’s not going to have a good result. What can we do is if they’re looking for suggestions on which products to use, we can certainly point them in the right direction but our focus is on managing the downstream impact of the ways that being created. To answer your question, the product—
DEBRA: Before you do that, I just want to [inaudible 7:1] for our listeners that there is the toxic chemicals that are being created by the use of the products. There are some ways that comes from—to far has just been going to the waste stream when it shouldn’t be. What they’re doing at Green Circle Salon’s program is managing that waste in a responsible way where the salon owners may or may not be controlling the production of it, right?
WILL SIMPSON: Exactly.
DEBRA: So that’s a really, really good thing to do. There’s another completely different step of salons and consumers making a choice to be less toxic on the front end. I just wanted to make sure that it’s clear that those are two separate steps and both valid things to do.
WILL SIMPSON: Absolutely. What we do in our company is we help salons by managing about 85% of the waste that is being generated in the salon. That’s everything from the paper and plastics that’s coming in the form of the product bottles and the sugar materials all the way down to the chemical waste that’s left over after the beauty service. So in terms of the toxins that we’re seeing, obviously the most common ones with the perm solutions, the straighteners solutions, the hair dye, the chemicals that are going on the scalp. We’re seeing all different types of products from all different manufacturers but one of the trends that we’re seeing is that people are, that over the last five years or so, there’s been a real emergence of greener products.
DEBRA: I need to stop you right there because we need to go to break and we’ll continue after. This is Toxic-Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest is Will Simpson. He’s from Green Circle Salons that are helping salons reduce their toxic wastes. We’ll talk more about that, the chemicals that you might be exposed to at the salon when we come back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Will Simpson, business development manager for Green Circle Salons. They started out in Canada but they are now coming over to the United States to help salons manage their toxic hazardous waste. So Will, you were telling us—we’re starting to talk about the toxic chemicals in hair products that are used for hair salon services. So let’s start with that.
WILL SIMPSON: There’s a real shift in the late 70s, early 80s in terms of the chemicals that were being used in hair dyes. The reason for that is because they founded the intermediate [inaudible 10:44] which are the chemicals that react with the pigment. At that time, we’re were actually—they were using cancer-causing agents. What they did was that they have been conducting [inaudible 10:59] people who were getting their hair dyed before the early 80s were at the higher risk of developing Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. They basically banned certain substances from being used as toppers in this chemicals, were in this chemical compound but in the process, scientists have been able to get around this bands and create chemical compounds that will react in the same way and they were just derivative of those original. That’s the fancy way of saying the hair dye that was being used 30 or 40 years ago hasn’t really changed all that much because ones the interactions take place they end up forming other compounds that are still known to be potentially carcinogenic.
WILL SIMPSON: There’s still a lot of debates and controversy over whether or not hair dye itself can cause cancer but what they do know is that in this one industry there is an increased risk of bladder cancer. This has been documented in a lot of different studies and they found that ultimately salon professionals do have a high risk of bladder cancer. For that reason, they’re continuing to do studies to bloodstream when they get their hair colored.
DEBRA: Right, of course secondly, being exposed to as much as the salon would care but still, we don’t want our salon workers to be exposed to toxic chemicals s that we could be beautiful. So, what are some other products that have toxic chemicals in them which we should be aware of?
WILL SIMPSON: The main products would be the hair dye itself but all chemicals that are being used can include cancer-causing agents. The main thing that we see are what are known as cold-heart derivative, PPD, that’s p-phenylene diamine. This is the number one ingredient in a lot of hair dyes and this is one of the number one chemicals of the most wanted list because of what it’s been known to be linked to leukemia, bladder cancer and again, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This is really the one that people are the most worried about. Formaldehyde is a big one in any of the smoothing treatment and perm solution. Any of those keratin Brazilian blow out type treatment that became so popular in the last couple of decades, these are often linked with formaldehyde.
WILL SIMPSON: Similarly, shampoos and conditioners are known to include sodium laurate or sodium laurate sulfate which is basically have a big question mark around it. Ultimately, a lot of these chemical compounds are still—the jury is not really out yet because they’re still doing research determining exactly where and how it’s affecting women. We do know in a lot of cases, a lot of different studies it’s affecting mammals and aquatic life in really significant way.
DEBRA: One of the things I learned many, many years ago is that there can be similar effect when they test chemicals they test them one at a time in a laboratory and usually on animals or so. They take the mice and take them so much and determine what is the safe level before the mice die. We’re not exposed to toxic chemicals one by one in real life but what we’re exposed to is a lot of toxic chemicals. There’s been many, many studies which show that if you take one toxic chemical and are exposed to another one that they both become more toxic, even just two.
So they say, if you smoke for example, exposure to asbestos is more toxic than if you don’t smoke. I remember the very person I ever saw this concept was 30 years ago when I was studying about combining food additives like a preservative and artificial color and artificial flavor. Separately, they test with them and all the test animals were fine, there was absolutely no effect. Then they started combining them and two of them made the animals ill and three of them made the animals die.
When you go to a salon, it’s not just one chemical, it’s formaldehyde that does something with the hair dye and also things like, one that I’ve written about is something called PVP, polyvinyl pyrolidone, which is in virtually every kind of hairspray.
There was a study, this was many, many years ago, a study where they found that workers in salon have lung diseases because of the PVP that they were inhaling all day long as they were spraying hairspray on people’s hair. That PVP is still in when in a lot of the natural ones but people go to the supermarket and buy hairspray. You can just go down on the aisle and look and on the back you just look on the ingredients; it says PVP, PDP, DVP and one after another. There are all these chemicals that are in a mix in the salon.
We need to go to break in about 20 seconds so I’m not going to ask you another question. Then when we come back, I want to hear about what your program is doing in order to handle these chemicals and how does these minimize our exposure to them and help them not go into the environment. You’re listening to Toxic-Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Will Simpson from Green Circle Salons. We’re talking about toxic exposures in hair salons. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic-Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Will Simpson, Business Development Manager from Green Circle Salon. Now Will, what is your solution for all this toxic chemicals?
WILL SIMPSON: Actually, before we talk about that, I just want to talk about something you mentioned earlier which was the idea that when chemicals get combined they could create a new reaction. I just wanted to mention that a study has been recently conducted in the UK and found out that tobacco smoke and exhaust fumes can actually exacerbate the effects of some of these salon chemicals. Putting clearly, the amines, p-phenylenediamine. PVDs that are found in most hair dyes, this is a common thing that they will create a secondary amine, this again can damage for weeks, months, or even years and ultimately, when it’s combined with secondary agents like tobacco smoke or exhaust fumes that can actually create poisonous chemicals called nitrosamine.
DEBRA: So, you can go into a salon and these chemicals could be floating around in the air, they get on your skin and then you go home and you smoke a cigarette, it can turn to another chemical.
WILL SIMPSON: Absolutely, if you actually look at the material for some of these products they say something like avoid smoking or doing anything in a non-ventilated area while these chemicals are around and the reason is because as we said, it will create a new reaction that compels the effects of these chemicals.
DEBRA: The part I didn’t know was that it stays on your skin and then on a later date, it could combine and create a new chemical. That just makes—I just have to make a deep breath because there’s so many chemicals that we’re being exposed to on time but then to also know that we’re carrying them around on our skin and in the future, they could become more toxic, that’s a whole new danger.
WILL SIMPSON: Exactly, and that is because there are actually different types of hair dyes. So there’s temporary, semi-permanent and there’s permanent. Temporary and semi-permanent, they actually just color the actual hair, whereas permanent dye is changing the chemistry of the hair and that actually stays in the follicle. That’s why these chemicals can penetrate the skin, scalp and also satay inside the hair for a length of time
DEBRA: Wow. Okay so, what are you doing? Tell me about your program.
WILL SIMPSON: Our program is waste production strategy that involves 95% of the products in the salon. Maybe most importantly the chemical waste but it’s also the hair clippings, the foil, the color tubes, the aerosol can, it’s the paper and plastic that 90% of the salons are able to recycle. It’s light bulbs, it’s all the recyclable, broken tools that salons use, it’s glass, it’s essentially everything that’s being brought into the salon on a day to day basis in order for them to run the business.
DEBRA: So then, what do you do? How does the program—do you collect it or what? How does this program work?
WILL SIMPSON: Salons get involve because obviously they see a value in what we’re doing and they want to eliminate their footprints. We do have a couple of different initiative that they can be involved with depending on where they’re located and what recycling services they have after disposal. It’s a three-part system; it’s reducing, recycling and repurposing.
WILL SIMPSON: The reducing is educating the salon about different opportunities to help their salon be more efficient in terms of their water usage, their energy efficiency. The recycling strategy is you take knowledge of the materials that can be shredded and ultimately repurposed like paper and plastic which can turn into post-consumer material, or metal which is melted down and turned into other aluminum products. Then there’s the repurposing element which is taking things like hair and the chemical waste which have no traditional value in the recycling spectrum and giving them a new life.
WILL SIMPSON: It’s a common knowledge now that hair can be used to soak up oil after oil spill. Our company got involved in 2010 after the BP oil spill by shipping our entire inventory of hair to the Gulf of Mexico and [inaudible 22:53] in that shipment, of course. So the volunteers could create oil bins on site that were used to keep the oil from coming up unto the shoreline.
DEBRA: Oh, I didn’t know that at all.
WILL SIMPSON: Well, it’s something that was a little known fact until the BP oil spill, but it actually, the idea originated back when [inaudible 23:14] still happened. Stylists from Alabama was listening and watching it on TV and saw an otter swim by and they notice that the fur or the coat of the otter was actually soaking up the oil. The interesting thing about hair as oppose to the other materials is that an oil company would normally use in their cleanup effort is that the oil actually binds to the hair follicle and the water is repelled. Whereas, if you’re using cotton or another typical absorbent fiber material, what will happen is basically it will act as a sponge and absorb everything and then over time everything will begin to leak out again.
WILL SIMPSON: The hair actually binds to—the oil binds to the hair follicle, what that means is when you take that back on to land, it will actually act as a solid way of transporting all of that liquid crude oil. It can then be put to a train car or any other transportation method and it can be sent to a facility where it could then be expressed, all of that oil can be claimed and the hair bun itself can be used in time and time again.
DEBRA: Wow! That’s very interesting. I have no idea. So then, what do you do with the chemical waste?
WILL SIMPSON: The chemical wastes, that’s the trickiest one for a salon to manage and the reason for that is because it’s not only the most expensive element of their business but it’s also the one that they have the least control over in terms of what staffs are wasting on a day to day basis. We implanted this strategy where there’s a system that they will use for all of their excess chemicals. Right now, we can’t get what’s being rinsed out of the hair but we do have plans to create a system for that in the future.
WILL SIMPSON: In the meantime, it’s a system that could basically make use of all the excess chemical left in the bowl which is usually one to two ounces per service. All of that chemical goes into a storage container, we would pick that container up and that gets processed by a chemical waste treatment company, which will, depending on what they find on each batch, that they will either incinerate it or they’ll neutralize it.
DEBRA: We need to take a break and we’ll talk about this when we come back. You’re listening to Toxic-Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, my guest today is Will Simpson from the Green Circle Salons. We’re talking about how to—what’s going on with those chemicals in beauty salons and how they can manage the waste better. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic-Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, my guest today is Will Simpson from the Green Circle Salons. Their website is greencirclesalons.ca because they are in Canada, Greencirclesalons.ca, if you want to find out more about their program, if you want to tell your hairdresser abou t their program. Right now, they’re in Chicago, US but they are looking to expand all over. There’s no harm in letting your salons know about this.
DEBRA: So now, you were telling us about the, what you do with the toxic chemical waste and so you take the toxic chemicals that are left in the sink and it goes into a storage container then you pick those up. Is there anything else you do with toxic chemicals? Hello?
WILL SIMPSON: A chemical waste company—
DEBRA: I’m sorry. There’s was a gap in the audio, could you repeat that?
WILL SIMPSON: Sure, so the chemicals get picked up by a toxic waste chemical treatment company and depending on what they find when they analyze each batch, they’ll either be neutralized or they’ll be incinerated. The interesting thing about the incineration process is it’s a closed lit system which actually allows these chemicals which would otherwise be going back to our water system and polluting them and polluting aquatic life, it actually creates an opportunity for us to use it as a wasted energy application.
WILL SIMPSON: Just as some other companies in Europe are now beginning to incinerate or gasify garbage to create electricity. This is actually a way to create electricity with the by-product of salon wastes. What it’s doing is actually creating an opportunity to power our homes in our life and ultimately, our blow driers as well due to the chemical waste collection program.
DEBRA: Well, that’s very good idea. What about the toxic chemicals that are polluting around in the air? Did you do anything for that?
WILL SIMPSON: What we do there is, again, we approach them as ecosystem so we believe that the light needs to be salon quality light but also need to be energy efficient life because this will ultimately help the salon to minimize its environmental footprint and also to more provable over time. The cleaning products should be free of all this chemicals and toxins that we’re talking about. The hair product ultimately, if they can, they should be looking for that. At every level we should be trying to do this. One of the big thing that we stress is air and water purification systems. More pure water actually creates a better end product in the hair service, it creates softer hair, it creates a more radiant hair. Similarly, the air quality in the salon is, if the salon continuous to use toxic products such as perm solution which has that ducky smell, it’s really important that they have some kind of system to pull the VOCs, the volatile organic compounds out of the air. We do offer solutions for all of our salons in the form of some great partners across Canada and the US who can actually offer these type of systems for a salon.
DEBRA: I think that’s a really good idea because even if I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years and I know if you’re looking at toxics in the field of toxics, first thing is reduce the poison at the source. If somebody is exposed to a toxic chemical and they are being poisoned, the first thing you do is take them away from the whatever is the source of exposure is. I’m always saying reduce at the source but in a situation like the beauty salon where they are using toxic chemicals and using a lot of them and if they decide that they need to continue to use those and they don’t go the more organic products then at the very least that they should do is have an air filter. You should be able to go to a beauty salon and not get exposure to toxic chemicals even if they’re being used. The other people are just standing around and also the workers should have that protection of removing those toxic chemicals from the air. We’re happy to hear that if salons are not switching to toxic-free products, that at least they have the option there to use an air filter.
WILL SIMPSON: Absolutely, and we really do believe that this is something that ultimately would become mandated by different government bodies because like you said, it’s not just the health of the salon guest but it’s also the people who are working for decades in this industry as an employee or as an owner. It’s very important that you’re putting all of the safe guards in place to work in a healthy environment. We really think that along with the waste production managers that healthier water quality are going to be very important parts in this industry in the future.
DEBRA: Well, particularly too, you go into a hair salon but they also offer nail services and that’s so toxic, the nail polish remover and the nail polish. When I go, I know that my welcome here has a nail salon and you can smell that all the way down to the hallway. You don’t have to be in a nail salon to smell all those chemicals and you should be able to go into hair salon and get your hair services without being exposed to those toxic nail polish, chemicals which is a whole new different thing. We already talked about that exemptions. We did a whole hour on nail polish. That’s something that needs to be considered when you go to a hair salon.
DEBRA: I know here in Clearwater, Florida, I fell to a salon where there are no toxic chemicals in the salon because the owner has decided to only use organic products and I think that’s wonderful. I can actually sit in the salon and it’s like sitting in my own living room. Hopefully, more salons will go to that direction as well.
WILL SIMPSON: Absolutely. This is something like what I said about earlier in the show, we found that this is an emerging trend. You can really trace this evolution across different industries where people are asking for healthier, greener, more sustainable business practices, specifically, in personal care field in terms of the food and products we’re consuming whether it’s topically or internally, people are looking or healthier options.
WILL SIMPSON: These green salon phenomenon is something that is popping up all over and it’s not distinct to anyone, region or country, it’s really something that should happened in a global level. What we found which is really interesting, is that a lot of this manufacturers are starting to pick up on that so they’re creating greener products for salons to use and it’s something where it began with paragons and sulfates, two of them are most wanted kinds of chemicals but certainly, there are brands that are really trying to do things all natural as best as they can.
WILL SIMPSON: The challenge of course with this is that anytime you’re using a “natural” products, it usually means it’s naturally derived or containing natural ingredients. So, often times, it’s actually just a spinoff of another chemical. What we found is there is TDF, toluene-diamine sulfate and that is considered as a safer alternative to the PPD that we were talking about earlier. It still can be problematic and can still create allergic reactions but it’s that trend that we move towards better and safer alternatives to these chemical compounds.
DEBRA: I think that’s a process that certainly there are more choices today than there were 30 years ago or 40 years ago or even 20 years ago, actually even 10 years ago. I would say that it’s accelerating in terms of how many new products that are coming out and there are so many new products that I can hardly keep tract with them. There’s also different degrees of products that are more or less toxic.
DEBRA: People need to make changes and well, if they’re willing to make a change. I remember there was a time when I had found a perfect shade of red lipstick and then I found out about toxic chemicals shortly. I need to get rid of this lipstick but I so didn’t want to because I was so attached to this red lipstick. But ultimately, it became more important to me not to expose myself to the lead and all the other things that are in red lipstick. After a period of time, there were actually red lipstick that were introduced, it’s actually a lip gloss, it’s not quite a lipstick, but it had that same shade of red and I was able to be happy with the colors and glosses that I could get and I didn’t have to hold on to those old ideas. I think that as time goes by change has happened. That we’re increasingly are being better and better and less toxic and less toxic products. It’s happening and every different industry.
DEBRA: I’m very happy to hear that hair salons are getting less toxic and it sounds like a good program that you have. We just have half a minute, is there any closing word you’d like to give?
WILL SIMPSON: I think it’s just important to people ask salon professionally what are you doing to get onboard with this. Not only because it’s a trend that will help them to stay competitive but also because ultimately, it’s their health on the line and it’s the health of the salon professionals as well who’s working in that industry. There are few things you can do but you can always ask your salon for their MFDF sheet, they can take a look of what products they are using.
DEBRA: Good idea.
WILL SIMPSON: You can ask them to—
DEBRA: I’m sorry I have to cut you off, thank you so much Will. You’re listening to Toxic-Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, be well.
