Dear Valerie: Everyone loves their pets. I’ve read the global pet care market was worth almost $250 billion last year and is expected to double by 2030. I’m seeing a lot of pet care product launches these days, including hair color for dogs. But are canine hair dyes really safe?  —Proud Pet Parent

Dear Proud:

Pet care is an interesting category from a regulatory perspective because, in most geographies, they’re not considered cosmetic products. This is problematic, in my opinion, because most consumers think pet products undergo the same scrutiny that human products do—they don’t. 

Pet products don’t always require the same safety documentation or registrations—they’re nearly unregulated compared to their human counterparts. Human testing doesn’t extrapolate to pet safety, so even if a brand did RIPT or some other testing designed for humans, it doesn’t necessarily carry over to dogs. There is also considerably less research conducted overall in the pet space, whether it’s on the product or ingredients intended for use on various animal skins. Another problematic area is knowledge. Most cosmetic chemists learn formulating for humans, yet the same cosmetic chemists may be formulating for pets. In most instances—the knowledge of anatomical and physiological aspects of pet skin is not-so-well known to most cosmetic chemists. As a result, they’re formulating like they would for human skin (and likely using Google to supplement their lack of knowledge). 

One must take into consideration that animals lick themselves and lick each other. While humans may also do this (I hope not?), animals spend a lot of time grooming, cleaning skin and fur with their tongues. This leads to ingestion. Some ingredients do have ingestion data through animal testing, but there are cases where the data won’t extrapolate to other animals or simply isn’t available. The toxicity absolutely must be taken into consideration! Don’t get me started on pet products loaded with essential oils.

Proud, you specifically brought up hair color for dogs. Coloring a dog’s tail pink is fun, although I think my Frank and Butch look great in their natural, warm brindle coats. Unfortunately, those vibrant pink colors usually mean the dyes are ionically attracted to the outside of their fur. Dogs lick fur. Hair dyes leach from fur. Hair dyes should not be ingested—a widely established fact. To be more safe than sorry, I would absolutely assume this includes being ingested by your dogs and cats. This makes hair coloring for pets a hard pass for me, even temporary pigment sprays.

Valerie George

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Valerie George is a cosmetic chemist, science communicator, educator, leader, and avid proponent of transparency in the beauty industry. She works on the latest research in hair color and hair care at her company, Simply Formulas, and is the co-host of The Beauty Brains podcast. You can find her on Instagram at @cosmetic_chemist or showcasing her favorite ingredients to small brands and home formulators at simply-ingredients.com