Toppik Danger?

[ML488]

At 31 after nearly 8 years of hair loss I finally decided to try a concealer. No product looked more amazing and well-reviewed than what seems like the front runner of hair fibers - TOPPIK.

 

I ordered some online and finally the other night I had time to play around and practice with it for a good 20 minutes. I was pretty amazed with the results, yet sad of course, knowing that it has come to the point of having to pay to spray fake hair into my head while every other friend of mine doesn't have a shred of loss. ANYWAY... onto the more serious and who knows, maybe a life threatening situation...

 

With the great results, came a huge problem with this Toppik. Turns out that after the 20 minutes of doing up my hair that night, I began noticing a slight burning sensation in my upper chest. Coughing was happening too. Yep, you guessed it, even though I tried not to, I clearly inhaled some of this stuff, and it affected me, big time. The keratin fibers or whatever you want to call them, whether because of an allergy or just being bad to inhale, made me feel extremely unwell. I even woke up in the middle of the night for 10 minutes all congested and sniffling a bit. I went to work the next day and felt very unwell all day. I did not start feeling completely better until 48 hours later.

 

My main questions are simply...

What does everyone think this was? I can't be the only one this has ever happened to

Maybe this was some sort of allergy to the wool (fibers)?

How does everyone else deal with spraying on Toppik or any hair fibers for that matter? Do you hold your breath?

 

I am also thinking another popular concealer called Dermatch might be a better option as this is a completely different kind of product. I know there is another popular hair fiber product called CABOKI but wouldn't this be very similar? If it was the wool i'm allergic to, then keratin fibers are out for me.

 

Sad. Can't even spray fake hair into my head to get a confidence boost

 

Please help.

[alt9]

Yes, you need to be extremely careful.

Even if you're not "purposely" or consciously inhaling the fibres, you still do inhale some.

 

If you continue using Toppik or any other concealer over time, this could cause lung disease; lung diseases cause increased risk of respiratory infections (like pneumonias) and could ultimately shorten life span and quality of life.

 

Fibers accumulate along the respiratory tract and could deposit in the alveoli. Your body has mechanisms to defend itself, but over time it will cause damage.

(I am in the medical field)

 

EVERYONE who uses concealers should wear a mask - I am not kidding - I do this myself.

You could buy a pack of masks from any hardware store or similar store for very cheap.

This could, no joke, have long term effects on your health and life span - it's worth the investment for only a couple of dollars.

 

Concealers have not been around long enough to see their long term effects on health, but their are other journal published cases of people who have been exposed to fibres over long periods of times (e.g. cotton fibres in the workplace), and these people get lung disease.

 

Moreover, you should wear some sort of eye protector. The fibres could accumulate on the conjunctiva of your eyes. This is not something you'd notice, and again, the body has mechanisms to clean the fibres away (via the liquid of tears) but over time this could certainly be dangerous.

 

I'd recommend any mask that protects you from small particles like N95 masks, which is what I use.

 

I literally made an account on this website just to post this because I feel that this is actually a serious danger, and only realized it when I started using concealers myself recently. I'm in the medical field (do not want to disclose any specific info for sake of anonymity), but I am writing about this out of the goodness of my heart. Hope you take something useful from it.

 

Let me know if you have any questions - I'd be happy to help and give you more specifics on what kind of mask, etc.!