Israel's Health Ministry warns against DRAGONFLY hair straightener after girl hospitalised

Israel's Ministry of Health has told the public to stop using a hair-straightening product sold under the name DRAGONFLY, after a teenage girl was admitted to hospital with damage to her kidneys following a straightening treatment. N12 reported the ministry's warning, which links the girl's hospitalisation directly to the procedure. Ynet, in its own alert, carried the ministry's message in short form: the product should not be used.

According to News.co.il, the ministry described its notice as an unusual public warning and called for use of the product to end immediately. The same outlet reported that the treatment was carried out in a home salon, meaning a hairdressing service run from a private residence rather than a commercial premises. News.co.il also reported that the ministry has recently received several reports of people being hospitalised after hair-straightening treatments, and that officials stressed that products without approval can put health at risk.

A label that claimed a licence the product no longer held

The ministry's review of the product found that its licence had been cancelled. N12 reported that the cancellation came at the request of the manufacturer, and that the product is no longer listed in the ministry's cosmetics registry. Despite this, N12 said, the label on the product still carries a line stating that it is licensed by the Ministry of Health.

News.co.il likewise reported that the licence had been cancelled and that the product no longer appears in the registry, though its account did not say who had asked for the cancellation. The detail that it was the manufacturer's request appears only in N12's reporting. The two accounts do not contradict each other; one simply gives more detail than the other.

How cosmetics are approved in Israel

In Israel, the Ministry of Health is responsible for regulating cosmetic products as well as medicines and food. It maintains a cosmetics registry, a database of products that hold a valid licence to be sold. The ministry's finding here turns on that registry: a product carrying wording about a ministry licence, while being absent from the official list, is the gap the warning highlights. For consumers, and for people who offer beauty treatments, the practical point in the ministry's message is that the wording on a label is not the same as current approval, and that the registry is where a licence can be checked.

Home salons and hair straightening

Hair-straightening treatments are widely offered in Israel, both in established salons and by individuals working from home. The case reported on Sunday involved a home salon, according to News.co.il. The reports do not say whether the person who performed the treatment knew that the product's licence had been cancelled, or where the product was bought.

The ministry's reference to a number of recent hospitalisations after straightening treatments suggests the DRAGONFLY case is not the only one it has been examining. News.co.il, which carried that detail, did not say how many such cases there were, which products were involved in them, or whether any of them were connected to DRAGONFLY.

What the ministry is asking the public to do

The core of the ministry's message, as reported by all three outlets, is simple: do not use DRAGONFLY. News.co.il's account adds the instruction that use should stop immediately, and the broader caution that unapproved products may endanger health. Ynet's alert framed the warning around the girl's hospitalisation and the instruction not to use the product. N12 published its report and later posted edited versions of the same text, with no change to the substance.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports gives the girl's age, the hospital where she was treated, or her current condition. They do not name the manufacturer or distributor, explain why the manufacturer asked for the licence to be cancelled, or say whether the ministry plans to remove remaining stock from sale or take action against anyone selling or using it. The number of other hospitalisations after straightening treatments that the ministry mentioned has not been reported, and no response from the manufacturer has been published.