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Report: #597672

Complaint Review: Mastey de Paris - Valencia California

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  • Reported By: No More Carcinogens — Valencia California United States of America
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  • Mastey de Paris 25413 Rye Canyon Road Valencia, California United States of America

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Mastey de Paris is a manufacturer of professional hair products located in Valencia California. I worked for the company for several years but had to leave my position because of a consciousness objection to their predatory tactics, particularly regarding their Teinture hair color product.

During the time I was working for the company, Teinture was launched. In many meetings we were told that we were by no means ever allowed to admit to the public that the Teinture included very high amounts of Diethanolamine (a much more toxic and carcinogenic form of methanolamine or MEA), p-phenylenediamine (PPDs), and trace amounts of ammonia. The company, especially Henri Mastey, was committed to marketing the product as the worlds first Zero-Ammonia, PPD and MEA free hair color. Unfortunately, their greed for profit drove them to create a dangerous product that will most certainly cause accumulated liver toxicity, cancer, corneal necrosis, and severe irreparable respiratory damage.

The company adopted a policy of not releasing the ingredients for the product or printing an ingredients label on the bottle.  In marketing and promotional materials, they are misleading but arguable truthful.  For example:

1. The product is marketed as Zero Ammonia (it actually has 0.9% ammonia and combined with a very dangerous chemical derivative of ammonia). They further explained that other companied who claimed their products were ammonia-free really did have ammonia but since they said that they were Zero Ammonia that they were more ammonia pure.

2. Based on the same logic as above, they further described the product as being PPD Free. The product does actually have varying amounts of PPD depending on the specific color, but in most cases it is much higher than you would find in any other comparable professional hair color product. In the companys logic, once they communicated that the word Free didnt really mean anything; they were open to call anything Free even if the ingredients did exist in the product.  I am certain this will not hold up well in court as the countless product liability lawsuits most certainly will start to flow in soon.

3. The company maintains it has no MEAs in the product. What they do not tell you is that it is loaded full of DEAs.  Monoethanoline is an organic compound with a very low toxicity but a very Alkali property.  Since something was needed to compensate for the low amounts of ammonia in the product, they decided to use diethanolamine which is derived by compounding monoethanoline with ethylene oxide.

4. They knew that anyone who understood hair color would know that some element would have to be introduced to compensate for the Zero ammonia. They came up with a cute name Amino-organic and said that the dangerous diethanolamine is actually the aminorganic a proprietary amino acid akali that acted as a gentle ammonia replacement and an oxi-oxidant. If you are a chemist, you might be laughing right now. But, I kid you not, this is how it is marketed like to this day!

Based on their marketing strategy as described above, they created a very dangerous product.  Here is why:

1. Many people are allergic to ammonia and the reactions to exposure could be quite serious and even deadly.  Not disclosing the small amount of ammonia in this product is irresponsible and negligent. A clientele of a salon, who is allergic to ammonia, can have 5 6 colors before reacting because the color was left on longer than normal. Risking a life threatening allergic reaction for someone I dont know in order to make more money was not something I could sign off on.

2. I personally understand allergies to PPDs as I have been allergic to PPDs for several years.  I carry around an adrenaline pen and have had to use it on a couple of occasions. A PPD allergic reaction is almost always life threatening.  To claim that your product is PPD free, knowing that it is loaded with them, is simply inexcusable.  Many women hunt for PPD hair color and go out of their way to use them because they are les to believe they are safe. In this case they are not.

3. The introduction of diethanolamine is the most dangerous crime.  To avoid having to disclose that MEA (a very safe and gentle organic compound), the treated the MEA with ethylene oxide and created diehanolamine. The product has a high volume of diethanolamine in it.  When diethanolamine is exposed to things like high heat or an acid (as in the case while coloring hair), it will convert into nitrosamine.  Nitrosamine are highly toxic and carcinogenic well known to cause accumulated liver toxicity, several types of cancer; irritation of the eyes, skin, nose, throat; eye burns, corneal necrosis, skin burns, eye lacrimation, and subtle but periodic coughing, sneezing.

About a year after launch we began to field phone calls from salons using our products who always seemed to have employees who were regularly ill.  Then, I learned that 5 hairdressers had been diagnosed with cancer and it seemed that the general health of our clients was quickly deteriorating.  We never did give a true ingredients list to anyone even though we always said it was provided upon request. I would like to give it to you now. It is actually quite short:

Partial Ingredients List
Ammonia - close to 1%
Dethanolamine - excessively high volumes
p-phenylenediamine
Alcohol Denatured
Sodium Sulfite
Sodium Hydrosulfite
Tetrasodium EDTA
Propylene Glycol
Grape Extract

God bless anyone who was had any exposure to these products. I feel so guilty for not taking a stand before.  This is the first place I am posting on this. I think my guilt may take the best of me soon and create more awareness.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 04/28/2010 06:02 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/mastey-de-paris/valencia-california-91355/mastey-de-paris-henri-mastey-master-de-paris-lies-about-dangerous-ingredients-in-teinture-597672. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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#4 Consumer Suggestion

BEWARE MASTEY!!!

AUTHOR: Man of Men - (United States of America)

POSTED: Friday, February 10, 2012

Mastey's flagship salon "Kasia Organic Hair Salon" has been getting HORRIBLE reviews!!! Not like bad reviews, but like "OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO SUE MASTEY AND THIS SALON" reviews!!!

AVOID THIS COLOR LINE AT ALL COSTS! With so many lines out these days, there is no point in risking this!

http://www.ripoffreport.com/hair-salons/kasia-organic-salon/kasia-organic-salon-kasia-salo-949aa.htm

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#3 Consumer Comment

Marketing hype indeed.

AUTHOR: NaturallyOrganic - (United States of America)

POSTED: Tuesday, September 06, 2011

The way Mastey makes money is by taking advantage of people who will buy marketing and sales hype without any research! If we can get salon owners and hair color clients to actually care about what theyre putting on their heads, we could get rid of Mastey, or at least stop them from engaging in false advertisement of a dangerous product.

Please read everything Mastey review you can before making the mistake of putting their products on you or your clients heads!

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#2 Consumer Comment

I have had pretty horrible results

AUTHOR: NoMoreChemicals - (United States of America)

POSTED: Tuesday, August 23, 2011

This hair color does not work, irritates the scalp, and requires a great deal of peroxide to produce any lift in the hair color at all. Anyone who knows anything about hair color chemistry can tell you that high amounts of peroxide (anything about 40 volume) will irreparably damage the hair in depleting it of sulfate. This, along with the extraordinary high loads of PTD's in this hair color, make it damaging to my client's hair and health. I wish I did my homework before listening to their marketing hype.

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#1 Consumer Comment

Mastey Review -or- Unsafe, toxic, chemical ridden Hair Color made by negligent Mastey

AUTHOR: NaturallyOrganic - (United States of America)

POSTED: Monday, August 15, 2011

Thank you so much to the ex-employee who is helping to blow the whistle on this cruel, negligent company. Your Mastey review seems to spew experience and credibility, and I dont believe anybody could have written a review like yours without significant experience inside Mastey. 

I can absolutely assure everybody that Mastey's Teinture line, as the original author says, is pumped full of PPDs, toxic MEA substitutes, and significant amounts of ammonia. This, coming from a company that claims it is 100% free of all of these...

Recently, I nearly found myself being SUED for my mistake in believing Mastey's claims. I only wish I came across a Mastey review such as this one before giving one cent of my money to this reckless "company".

I was first draws to Mastey from a similar line called Organic Color Systems. I went over to Teinture after being convinced by their spamming, lying marketing department that is was, as the original author said, "The Worlds First Zero-Ammonia, PPD and MEA free hair color". I began phasing the new line in, and remember thinking, "This is great for how safe its ingredients are!". BOY WAS I WRONG!

About 4 weeks after I began using Mastey Teinture, I gave one of my regular, long standing clients a cut and color. You could have even called us fairly close friends. Not anymore! This client is allergic to both ammonia and PPDs, which is why she came to my salon when I used Organic Color Systems. The first time I used Mastey Teinture on her hair, she began coughing, sneezing, complaining of scalp and eye irritation...I ran her to my washing station and ran water over her head as she was struggling for breathe and vision while her scalp was burning. We may have overreacted, but this visit ended up in an ambulance and a trip to the hospital. The next day, I was getting all sorts of legal threats and the like. I dont blame her! I would have sued if I were her! And I would have sued Mastey if that client and I didnt settle the issue before it escalated to there.

Im sorry I went on typing for so long, but Mastey should not be able to do this to people. We can only hope for a class action lawsuit against these negligent people and spread the word to try to prevent this from happening to anybody else. Thanks again so much to the original author, an ex-employee who had the courage to blow the whistle on the danger Mastey poses to the hair industry.

For further reading and proof - See this blog article's comments - Mastey EXECUTIVES come in and blatantly lie about their products. Thankfully, they are told off by educated salon owners and hairstylists, but this shows the real intent of the companies executives. They even become hostile at one point when being told they are building a marketing campaign based on lying about their ingredients. http://www.green-talk.com/2010/02/02/organic-color-systems-wash-those-grays-away-with-a-safer-hair-color

If this review keeps one person safe from Mastey's dangerous, fraudulent, and toxic products and business practices...I think we have done our job

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