"Too Many Hairdressers are getting sick. Things need to change," says Nanette Barter, founder of Penny Black Organic. Her mission is to shed light on the horrifying toxins hidden in everyday hair products, so we can all make better choices for our hair - and our health.

I started my hairdressing career as an apprentice over 40 years ago when I was just sixteen. I loved my job, but from the start I knew something wasn’t right.The first hairdresser I worked for became desperately ill with Crohn’s disease. Her bowel turned gangrenous and I watched her waste away till she weighed just 25 kg (55 lbs).She wasn’t alone. So many of my hairdresser friends were getting sick, mainly with bowel diseases and cancer.Little did I know I was next in line.I was only 30 when I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, a painful and often deadly inflammatory bowel disease.I was juggling raising two small children with running my own hair salon, but I was so ill I felt like I was going to die. The doctors wanted to remove my bowel, but I said No.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

That’s when I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. I didn’t know what it was, but something in hairdressing was making us sick. When my daughter Laura started hairdressing, enough was enough. I had to find out what was making me ill before it happened to her too. Both our lives depended on it. I began by looking at the hair products we were using. When I took a deeper look into the ingredients, I was shocked. They were full of all sorts of dangerous toxins and known carcinogens. How was this even legal?

There was no way I was ever using any of those products again. So I started searching for another way. When I heard about the Green Salon Certification in Denmark, I finally saw a glimmer of hope. They were the only people in the whole world who were taking hairdressers' health seriously. My daughter Laura and I jumped on a plane to Copenhagen as soon as we could. We learned so much from the Green Salon course it was life changing. Once my eyes were opened, I knew my hair salon had to change. I just couldn’t carry on exposing my staff, my clients and my daughter to all those harmful toxic chemicals every day. So Laura and I took what we had learned and started Penny Black, Australia’s first ever Certified Green Salon.

It was a massive undertaking.Everything had to be done differently.We had to make sure all our ingredients were natural, organic, sustainably sourced, GMO and pesticide free, cruelty free and vegan – with absolutely NO harmful toxins. we wanted to go even further. It’s one thing for a product to do no harm; it’s another for it to actually benefit your scalp and hair health. So we set out to create the world’s finest, COSMOS organic certified eco-luxe haircare products. I searched the world for the purest, most powerful natural compounds – and found the best of them right here, in Australia.

That’s when I discovered that by harnessing the power of Australian Native Extracts, I could achieve far better results than synthetic alternatives – without putting anyone's health at risk. Laura and I spent four years developing, testing and fine-tuning our dream haircare products.We had to feel they were making the world a better place. They needed to be sustainable, ethically made, eco packaged, non-polluting, vegan, carbon neutral – and still perform better than anything else out there. Instead of just masking damaged hair so it looks good for a few washes, we created products that actually nourish your scalp to build your hair health over time. I’m talking shiny, youthful looking hair that’s naturally healthy and gets thicker and stronger with every use.

Our salon customers were the happiest guinea pigs on earth. No animal testing needed – we had very willing human volunteers! All the hard work has finally paid off. The result is the finest hand-crafted luxury organic haircare range in the world.

I’m proud to call them Penny Black Organic