Influence of cosmetic hair treatments on hair of methamphetamine abuser: Bleaching, perming and coloring

Abstract

Various cosmetic hair manipulations are known to interfere with the drug of abuse concentrations in hair. It is important to know the effects of cosmetic hair treatments as they may cause false-positive or false-negative results. The article aimed to investigate the effect of bleaching, perming, and dyeing treatment on the hair of methamphetamine（MA）abusers. The research results show that during the bleaching treatment, the content of MA in the hair is positively correlated with the degree of the treatment. Bleaching caused strong chemical degradation on MA, while perming exerted more a leaching out effect. Temporary dyes in single applications had only little effects on MA, Semi-permanent dyes can penetrate into the hair and exert a stronger matrix effect. The effect of permanent hair dye on the content of MA in hair mainly depends on the concentration of hydrogen peroxide.