sandover
Hey --
I get that same smell in the bathroom when I flush, and moreover, so does my husband. I have not colored my hair in 15 years, and to my knowledge Tom has never colored his. I wonder if it's just some powerful stomach juice smell that happens to have Eau de Beauty Parlor....
I remember someone told me (I think it was Hopinso) that the way to tell if the gallbladder had dumped/the flush was "working" was that there would be a very distinctive smell, as well as a light-brown/golden color to what was expelled. This has been true for me. Pardon my candor, but the bathroom the day after flushing does not smell the same way as it does when one of us has just used it for a "normal" visit.
Another thing: when you are pregnant, many people will tell you it is OK to get hair color applied. They may know nothing, but many say it is safe and does not get absorbed. I don't want to start a big debate on how anything applied to your head will get absorbed, etc. and I would be the first to tell a friend to forgo hair color at least during pregnancy, but the scalp is not fatty and does not absorb as much as a body part that is well-padded, so to speak. If you apply a medication or cream that you want to soak in, you apply it to a fatty area.
I don't think that hair color, as bad as it is and so forth, would last or produce smells after being held in the body for years. THere are a ton of chemicals we apply more directly to our bodies which don't do this. I am sure this sort of thing has been tested (and I hate to think how -- hair color in the eyeballs of lab mice, etc.).
I would bet my last buck on the powerful stomach juice to come up with this peculiar smell!
Laura