Act by Nature, LLC produces high quality all natural hair colorants. Our product line includes revolutionary patent pending natural permanent hair color, coloring tints, and color enhancing solutions made using 100% plant derived dyes. We use no para-phenylenediamine (PPD), no ammonia or other amines, no peroxide, no resorcinol, and no parabens.

RENEWABLE

A natural resource qualifies as a renewable resource if it is replenished by natural processes at a rate comparable to its rate of consumption by humans or other users. Natural resources that qualify as renewable resources include oxygen, fresh water, timber, and biomass. However they can become non-renewable resources if used at a rate greater than the environment's capacity to replenish them. For example, groundwater may be removed from an aquifer at a rate greater than the sustainable recharge. Removal of water from the pore spaces may cause permanent compaction (subsidence) that cannot be reversed. Renewable resources may also include commodities such as wood, paper, and leather. Gasoline, coal, natural gas, diesel and other commodities derived from fossil fuels are non-renewable. Mankind has been dyeing skin, food and textiles for thousands of years using natural extracts, minerals and botanicals. The first man-made synthetic organic dye, mauveine, was discovered by William Henry Perkin in 1856. Since then, many thousands of artificial dyes have been synthesized from coal tar and petroleum derivatives, such as naphthalene. Synthetic dyes quickly replaced the traditional natural dyes. They cost less, they offered a vast new range of colors, and they imparted better properties to dyed materials. Today, more than 90% of all foods and goods are being colored with synthetic dyes made from petroleum.
Our revolutionary technology enables us to use plant dyes to obtain the same palette of bright, stable shades as you can get with synthetic dyes.

BOTANICAL

Botany is the scientific study of plant life. As a branch of biology, it is also called plant science, or plant biology. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines that study plants, algae, and fungi including structure, growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, and chemical properties and evolutionary relationships between the different groups. The study of plants and botany began with tribal lore, used to identify edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making botany one of the oldest sciences. From this ancient interest in plants, the scope of botany has increased to include the study of over 550,000 kinds or species of living organisms. As with other life forms in biology, plant life can be studied from different perspectives, from the molecular, genetic and biochemical level through organelles, cells, tissues, organs, individuals, plant populations, and communities of plants. At each of these levels a botanist might be concerned with the classification (taxonomy), structure (anatomy), or function (physiology) of plant life. The study of plants has importance for a number of reasons. Plants are a fundamental part of life on earth. They generate the oxygen, food, fibers, fuel and medicine that allow higher life forms to exist. Plants also absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, a minor greenhouse gas that in large amounts can affect global climate. It is believed that the evolution of plants has changed the global atmosphere of the earth early in the earth's history and paleobotanists study ancient plants in the fossil record. A good understanding of plants is crucial to the future of human societies as it allows us to:

• •  Produce food to feed an expanding population
• •  Understand fundamental life processes
• •  Produce medicine and materials to treat diseases and other ailments
• •  Understand environmental changes more clearly

Therefore we are not just using any random plant source, but are applying botanical sciences to find the appropriate cultivar with maximum dye content and minimum soluble and insoluble solids without using any genetically modified organisms..

ENVIRO

The main principals of Enviro Dyes were formulated in Europe and Japan in the mid 1990s, primarily for textile dyes in Europe and Japan. One main principal of Enviro is that raw materials and processes should be environmentally friendly. Until the end of the 19th Century dyes from plants were the only colors used for textiles, other than inorganic pigments and dyes of animal origin. With the development of the cheaper synthetic colors, natural dyes were completely replaced and the cultivation of dye plants ceased. Recently, interest in natural dyestuffs has been revived, not only in Europe, but also in Japan and the United States. This is due in part to increasing incidences of allergic reactions to synthetic dyes and in part to changing environmental considerations. However, to date most of the naturally-dyed textiles sold on the European market are produced in India or Thailand. The reintroduction of natural dyes into the European textile industry was not possible in the past due to technical problems and raw material availability. EpoBio, an International European led project AIR2-CT94-0981,Cultivation and Extraction of Natural Dyes for Industrial Use in Natural Textiles Production, started in 1995 with very specific objectives, such as the development of an ecologically-useful cultivation system to enable crop production of low-cost raw materials; high quality, efficient, low-cost methods of dye recovery; the production of dyes acceptable to the industry; the revival and optimization of old dyeing techniques for industrial use; and the purification of waste water. Another main principal of Enviro is sustainability. Sustainability is the characteristic of a process or state that it can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. For planet earth, it is thus thought to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future. Some people now consider the term "sustainable development" as too closely linked with continued material development, and prefer to use terms like "sustainability", "sustainable prosperity" and "sustainable genuine progress" as the umbrella terms. Despite differences, a number of common principles are embedded in most charters or action programmers to achieve sustainable development, sustainability or sustainable prosperity.

• •  Dealing transparently and systemically with risk, uncertainty and irreversibility.
• •  Ensuring appropriate valuation, appreciation and restoration of nature.
• •  Integration of environmental, social, human and economic goals in policies and activities.
• •  Equal opportunity and community participation/Sustainable community.
• •  Conservation of biodiversity and ecological integrity.
• •  Ensuring inter-generational equity.
• •  Recognizing the global integration of localities.
• •  A commitment to best practice.
• •  No net loss of human capital or natural capital.
• •  The principle of continuous improvement.
• •  The need for good governance.

COLOR

Color is the human labeling of certain bands of light in the visual spectrum of light (380-740nm). Because perception of color stems from the varying sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance. The science of color is sometimes called chromatics. It includes the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what we commonly refer to simply as light). The color table should not be interpreted as a definitive list - the pure spectral colors form a continuous spectrum, and how it is divided into distinct colors is a matter of culture, taste, and language. A common list identifies six main bands: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Newton's conception included a seventh color, indigo, between blue and violet - but most people do not distinguish it, and most color scientists do not recognize it as a separate color; it is sometimes designated as wavelengths of 420-440 nm. The intensity of a spectral color may alter its perception considerably; for example, a low-intensity orange-yellow is brown, and a low-intensity yellow-green is olive-green. A chromophore is part (or moiety) of a molecule responsible for its color. When a molecule absorbs certain wavelengths of visible light and transmits or reflects others, the molecule has a color. Dyes are major part of any Hair Color formula and must fit several criteria:

• •  Safety
• •  Performance
• •  Technological Properties and Formulation
• •  Regulatory Compliance

SAFETY

Safety of Color is a major factor. When ACT started working with dyes we very carefully investigated its safety profile for both long term and /or acute toxicity. Moreover, as a whole our technology is completely different from the current permanent hair color on the market containing oxidative para-phenylenediamine based dyes. (PPD). Our technology is based on so-called non-oxidative dyes and our products do not contain any PPD, ammonia, resorcinol or any other attributes of oxidative dyeing. All of our dyes and active materials are carefully combined and checked against publicly available safety recourses. Most of the dyes and active raw materials are food and/or pharmaceutical grade and purified according to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) processes.

PERFORMANCE

No matter how safe and sustainable dyes are, they still must have excellent performance characteristics in order to be used. Our core technology is in making our own dyes. We control the process at all stages from harvesting to transporting, extraction, purification and preparation for use. Our core dye technology lies in our proprietary extraction techniques, such as supercritical CO2 extraction. This Patent Pending technology makes our products highly competitive and based on different principal.  We use state of the art extraction techniques enabling us to produce super pure dye-cromophores. The purity of our natural chromophores is as good, or in many cases better, than synthetic dyes. The purity of chromophores is main factor, other than cost, that has allowed synthetic colors to dominate the dye market for past 150 years. It is well known that most of natural dyes produce dull mixed shades. This is primarily due to mixed and impure chromophores.

TECHNOLOGICAL PROPERTIES AND FORMULATION

None of our ingredients are tested on animals. We create products while continuously monitoring recent news in toxicological sciences. We do not use parabens or formaldehyde donors. However, specialty dyes require special formulation technologies. Our dyes are highly stable, but being from plant origin require special procedures to be as effective as oxidative dyes. As we mentioned before our technology enables us to produce pure, bright shades, just as pure and as bright as you can get using synthetic dyes. But there are other technological and performance characteristics to consider, such as durability, photo stability and leveling properties. Yes, our hair color is as long lasting as oxidative colors. Laboratory studies and numerous salon tests demonstrate effectively that our hair color can last up to 8 weeks. These characteristics are due to our proprietary formulation and patent pending technology. To better explain how it works, we would like to review the four stages that dye passes in order to color human hair.  First stage is diffusion of dye from the dye media to the substrate (hair). This stage is crucial for general application of any given dye. That’s when commonly used term "substantivity" is being applied. Generally speaking, if dye does not have substantivity, substrate coloring is impossible. In some cases enormous amounts of dye are being used, creating obvious problems with toxicity and greatly increasing costs. Second stage is absorption of dye by the surface of substrate. This stage is crucial for developing of color or shade, as well as for durability, time and convenience of the process. Dyes with good but balanced substantivity produce the best results. This is determined by the energy of dyes being applied. This stage is also responsible for leveling (equal spreading of color). Third stage is diffusion of dye from the surface to the inner volume of the substrate. This stage is heavily responsible for color durability. The deeper the diffusion, the better and more durable your color is going to be. This stage is also heavily responsible for leveling and color (shade). Fixation of dye on the substrate is the last stage. After this stage the dyes are going to last and perform. Our revolutionary two part system is capable to address all of these stages. We use somewhat similar conditions to acid dyes by lowering pH to make the hair fiber charged. The pH of our hair color is also low. Oxidative dyes require high pH and often ammonia and/or amines to open up hair cuticles. Our special formulation technology enables us to overcome this problem and create high substantivity of the system as a whole without ammonia. There is no need to open up cuticle to created substantivity. Thus, no hair damage occurs due to open cuticles. Moreover, our extensive research enables us to create very unique dye compositions with balanced energies. Our core technology enables us to create sufficient inner space and conditions for dyes to penetrate. Compared to oxidative dyes that form di-mers or tri-mers (chunks of dye) in the hair fiber, our system is forming smaller fixed units very similar in size to melamine particles. That results in different dye refraction and provides natural look. It also makes color last for up to 8 weeks.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

All of our products are formulated within CTFA and FDA guidelines. Our CI (Color Indexed) dyes are analytically matched to CI (Color Index) parameters. All ingredients used in our formulations are approved for use by CTFA and FDA.