Knowing what I know now, how a lot of those chemicals can cause hormone disruption, you can't convince me that that isn’t what I've been dealing with for years, she said.
According to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit focused on health and environmental safety,
women use an average of 12 health and beauty products a day that contain more than 164 chemicals.
And while the European Union has banned or restricted the use of at least 1,300 toxic chemicals used in cosmetics, the United States has banned only 11.
On average, black women use more personal and hair care products than other women. And studies have shown that products marketed to
African American women contain more toxic chemicals than those marketed to any other group.
Advocates say this is in part due to the nature of the products themselves, those used to smooth or straighten hair require more aggressive chemicals, as well as beauty myths perpetuated by society and institutional racism.
Women said that from a young age an attitude that their hair was “too much” to handle was prevalent. Strongest were the cultural motivators. The influence of European beauty standards viewed through popular media and social status in the U.S. and much of the formerly colonized world, reinforced the notion that their hair wasn’t beautiful in its natural state.
Viewing beauty through a European lens, black hair is seen as unruly or "unkempt." The bigger the hair, King said, the more rebellious society believes you are.
What is the new products for women?
For years, she said she was dogged by a desire to assimilate into the dominant culture. Going against beauty standards that favor straight hair or loose curls can impact a black woman’s education, quality of life and earning potential.
She describes the feeling as an internal wrestling with one’s ideals.
It’s so sad that we have to make life decisions based on our hair. It places a stigma on us, King said.
She’s too loud, she doesn’t submit to authority, all of that because my hair is not laying flat and is not controlled.
Chemical relaxers, made with thioglycolic acid or sodium hydroxide, the latter commonly known as lye, work by breaking down the hair’s disulfide bonds, leaving it fragile and prone to breakage.
The process is extremely painful.
It feels like fire ants,” said Kim Willis, owner of Kimistry Hair Lab on West Third Street “Like your scalp is on fire, and your skin is peeling.
The corrosive chemicals found in relaxers can break the skin, causing severe burns and blisters.
Now, scientists are questioning the safety of these products and how they may affect
black women’s health over the course of their lives.
In December, research published in the International Journal of Cancer found that using chemical hair straighteners increased a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 31%, regardless of her race.
A study published a year prior by Silent Spring Institute, the leading scientific breast cancer research organization in the country, discovered the use of five chemicals banned in the E.U. for their toxicity, in "kiddie relaxers" like “Just for Me” that are marketed for children.
Chemical straighteners have been linked to the development of uterine fibroids, — cysts that grow on the uterus that can cause pain and infertility — a condition that overwhelmingly affects black women; as well as early onset of puberty and menstruation in young black girls.
These are troubling findings as medical research has proven that the younger a girl’s age when she begins puberty, the higher her chances are of developing breast cancer later in life.
Breast cancer is an incredibly unequal disease.
In Alabama, black women have significantly higher rates of breast cancer than white
women. Nationally, they are more likely to die from breast cancer than any other group of women. Contributing to this fact is the likelihood that African American women will be diagnosed later, and with more aggressive tumors.
These types of breast cancer are often referred to as “triple negatives.”
Jasmine McDonald, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, described why these cancers often yield less favorable outcomes.
“When something is positive that means that it’s receptive to something. … If you have a tumor that is receptor negative, that means there’s not necessarily a drug that can be utilized to target that tumor,” she said.
The study published in the Journal of Cancer in December also linked the use of permanent hair dye with an increased risk of the disease.
Researchers found that African American women who used permanent hair dye were 45% more likely to develop breast cancer than black women who did not — 60% if they reapplied the dye every 5 to 8 weeks. White
women’s risk increased by 8%. Previous research has also linked the use of dark colored permanent dyes to an increased risk of bladder cancer.
The study followed more than 46,000 women (
Ladies New Products Online)between ages 35 and 74 over the course of six years. Each participant was asked about their product usage in the 12 months prior to the assessment, and all had a sister who had been previously diagnosed with breast cancer.
The strength of the study lies in the fact that researchers were able to identify two chemicals, one in permanent dyes and one in chemical straighteners, that have been found to cause cancer in laboratory tests.
While its co-author Dale Sanders noted it was unlikely any single factor could explain a woman’s breast cancer risk, he advised that avoiding these chemical products could help to reduce it.
Comprehensive research on the risks posed to stylists who use these chemicals multiple times a day or week is scant.
And unlike drug store brands, which are required by the Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act to list all product ingredients with the exemption of fragrance and colorants, professional salon brands are not.
This means that professional stylists who are trained to administer these products are not even fully aware of what exactly is in them.
In 2009, California based nonprofit Black Women for Wellness began conducting surveys on how the chemicals found in professional grade products were affecting the health of local salon workers.
They described stylists as “over exposed and under protected.”
Executive Director Janet Robinson Flint said she knew of at least two support groups in the Los Angeles area that were started by hairdressers because their co-workers were being “diagnosed with cancer to the point where it was epidemic.”
For black women like Willis, this hits home. The salon owner graduated in 2010 from Paul Mitchell Beauty School, known for its color specialization courses. She described these services as her “bread and butter.”
She has experienced bouts of dizziness from inhaling hydrogen peroxide fumes present in “developers,” as well as skin discoloration and peeling from handling “lighteners” used to bleach hair.
The 32-year-old stylist developed polycystic ovary syndrome in her late teens, and wonders how the chemicals she has used personally and professionally might have affected her own health over the years.
She is now four months pregnant, and although she has shortened her working hours and takes precautions such as wearing a mask when performing color treatments; she admits concern about what effects the chemicals she works with daily may have on her unborn child.
Chemicals found in hair products can throw your body out of whack
Chemicals that disrupt the body's endocrine, or hormonal, system have caused concern among scientists and have become the source of a growing body of research.
Scientists call these chemicals “EDCs” or endocrine disrupting chemicals, and they're present in hair products that most black women use every day. Products like growth oils, root stimulators, moisturizers, lotions and hair conditioners, particularly those that contain placenta derivatives.
EDCs alter how the body responds to hormones in different ways. Sometimes they mimic natural hormones in the body, such as estrogen, and at other times they may block hormones from operating normally. They can even disrupt how messaging occurs throughout the body.
Studies have classified EDCs commonly found in hair products into three categories: estrogens, phthalates and parabens.
Breast cancer researchers are particularly concerned about how these chemicals behave like the hormone estrogen.
“Exposure to estrogen is a risk factor for breast cancer,” said Robin Dodson, a research scientist who studies environmental, or external, risk factors of breast cancer at Silent Spring Institute.
If you take cancer cells in a lab and put estrogen on them, they multiply.
Owner Nicole King works on a customers hair at Tre'ss Bien Salon in Montgomery, Ala., on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019. (Photo: Jake Crandall/ Advertiser)
While isolated exposure to EDCs may not be harmful, the cumulative effects of these chemicals that women may be simultaneously exposed to by using multiple hair and beauty products each day could pose risks.
Chemicals such as parabens and fragrances, which are found in most hair products have been linked to a host of reproductive issues.
Environmental links to disease, however, are hard to prove. In part because breast cancer is a long latency disease that takes considerable time to develop; during this period a woman may have exposure have to several different things. Many environmental contributors to disease also likely occur on a smaller scale than traditional risk factors like alcohol consumption or diet.
Still, continued exposure, however small, to toxic chemicals over the course of years, often decades, is concerning to researchers and consumers alike.
Stuck between stigma and assimilation
For black women, the transition from chemical straighteners back to their natural kinks represents cultural pride as much as a concern for their personal health. But for too many, simply choosing to wear their hair as it grows is a fraught decision.
Strict standards in school and work environments about what is considered professional drive many to embrace styles and methods that obscure their hair’s texture and shape.
One salon owner said she had styled many women working in television who complained of being reprimanded by their employers for wearing their hair naturally on news programs.
As someone who has worked for decades in corporate environments from banking to
e-commerce, Nicole Whitehead, chief human resources officer at Auburn University in Montgomery, understands well the risks that going natural can pose.
She recalls an incident early on in her career where a white manager made it clear to employees that his standards of professionalism did not include hairstyles like braids or cornrows, common cultural styles worn by black people often to avoid breakage caused by over-manipulating kinky hair textures.
As one of only a few African Americans on the job, she understood the message clearly: It would be detrimental to her career if she didn’t conform to his standards.
She said that after years of applying chemical relaxers, her hair grew fine and damaged. When she relocated for a new job, she began wearing her hair in protective styles like braids. The looks and comments from her white co-workers began instantly.
They would say things like “it doesn't look bad. But we liked it the other way. Which is code for ‘your hair is too black,’” Whitehead said.
She kept a log, writing down comments people made about her hair.
“It would start conversations even when I wasn’t speaking,” she said.
When she transitioned to higher education, she says black students began approaching her for advice. Not related to their prospective careers, but instead their hair. How had she been able to succeed in majority white institutions wearing her hair this way?
Whitehead, who has also had reproductive issues of her own, now wonders what impact the chemical hair relaxers she received for so many years have had on the rest of her body.
“Eighty percent of the women in my family have had hysterectomies," she said, "including me early in my 20s."
Federal regulators are asleep at the wheel
By next year, Nielsen data firm projects that African American buying power will grow from $1.2 to $1.5 trillion. Black buyers captured 86% of the ethnic beauty market in 2017. And black women are estimated to spend $7.5 billion on beauty products each year — 80% more than other
women spend on cosmetics.
Despite the tremendous profits the beauty industry gains from black consumers little has been done from a regulatory standpoint to improve the safety of the products they use.
Many wonder why the federal government hasn’t done more to inform or protect American consumers, most of whom assume the products they find on store shelves are safe for consumption and have been rigorously tested.
Janet Nudelman, director of program and policy at the science-based advocacy organization Breast Cancer Prevention Partners in San Francisco, said that sentiment couldn’t be further from the truth.
Under U.S. law there are currently no legal requirements for any cosmetic manufacturer to test the safety of their products.
While manufacturers may do skin patch tests to ensure their products don’t cause mild irritations such as rashes, the chemicals they use are not comprehensively evaluated, nor are their potential hormonal effects considered.
In clinical studies, black women on average appear to have higher metabolic concentrations of EDCs in their bodies than
white women. These include phthalates like DEP that are often associated with fragrance in beauty products and have been proven to encourage early onset of puberty and breast development in girls. As well as parabens, which are used as preservatives in beauty products, and have been proven to spur growth in certain types of breast cancer cells.
Three phenylenediamines used in hair dye and four different kinds of formaldehyde, the same chemical compound used to embalm bodies at the morgue, used in hair straightening products have also been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer in women.
“These are really, really nasty chemicals,” Nudelman said.
The Federal Trade and Cosmetic Act, which oversees the sale and regulation of beauty products marketed to American consumers hasn’t been updated since 1938 — more than 80 years ago. But the beauty industry, and the products it manufactures have changed greatly since then.
Many assume that the Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of cosmetics like they do food and drugs, yet only about two pages of federal law exists to control a global cosmetic industry valued at $532 billion.
Cosmetic reform advocates say the law grants agency regulators no statutory authority and hinders even the most basic oversight of the industry.
The FDA cannot legally require pre-market safety testing or review. It can’t require companies to submit reports of “adverse events” from the use of their products. And it cannot recall toxic or dangerous products from store shelves.
“When you think about a food recall,” Nudelman said, “if the FDA issues a mandatory recall of peanuts or lettuce, they're doing two things.
"They’re telling the stores to take the product off of their shelves, but they’re also telling consumers to throw the product away and not use it.”
The FDA doesn’t require beauty companies to disclose the results of their studies or even consumer complaints.
Let's say that a cosmetics company’s product is reported to cause adverse reactions, as was the case in 2017 after more than 21,000 women claimed a cleansing conditioner produced by the celebrity touted brand Wen caused balding and hair loss after repeated use; the most the FDA can do is ask a company to issue a voluntary recall, which they can then choose to ignore.
And they did, in this case. Wen’s products remained on the shelves though the company later settled a $26M class action lawsuit.
Simply put, the FDA and Environmental Protection Agency, both mandated to regulate the cosmetic industry, have no teeth.
What stands in their way, Nudelman argues, is the Personal Care Products Council, a trade group whose lobbyists have aggressively fought any cosmetic regulation. She names the association as the main obstacle to the advancement of cosmetic safety legislation at the state and federal level.
Members of the PCPC fund a panel that reviews cosmetic ingredients' safety, which Nudelman describes as a case of “the fox guarding the hen house.”
Companies then use the trade panel’s determinations to justify the continued use of chemicals that have already been banned from cosmetics in the E.U.
“The industry has a vested interest in making sure that its safety panel continues to affirm the safety of the chemicals they use, even if the scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows those chemicals to be toxic,” she said.
Some alternatives do exist
The fact remains, multinational corporations are already making less toxic formulas, the problem is they aren’t necessarily selling them here. These products are traded on the international market, in countries with more strict regulations.
To educate consumers on the potential dangers of cosmetics, organizations like BCPP, BWW, Silent Spring Institute and EWG have created tools to help consumers determine the safety of their products or find healthier alternatives.
The animated short "Hair Love" about a father learning to style his daughter's natural hair, won director Matthew Cherry and producer Karen Rupert Tolliver their first Oscars on February, 9. (Photo: Matthew A. Cherry/Kickstarter)
Although the “clean” beauty industry has increased dramatically and remains the sole cosmetic sector currently experiencing dramatic growth, "clean" and "organic" labels do not necessarily translate to fewer chemicals.
Researchers advise consumers that less is more. Look for products that contain fewer ingredients and note the order they are listed, those that come first are used in higher concentrations. Avoid fragrance and parabens.
In August, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., introduced a House bill aimed at filling in the gaps in current legislation that BCPP has labeled the “gold standard” in cosmetic regulation. Nudelman said it’s notable for its emphasis on protecting vulnerable populations, which it defines as people of color and salon professionals, in addition to traditional categories such as pregnant women.
Some stylists have noticed fewer women requesting relaxers and more women requesting them less frequently. Many black women are opting to transition to natural hairstyles rather than use harsh chemicals.
Though barriers to professionalism and respectability still exist.
New York and California remain the only two states in the country to sign into law protection for African Americans and people of color against discrimination based on hairstyles or texture.
Matthew A. Cherry, from second left, Deandre Arnold, Karen Rupert Tolliver, Sandy Arnold, second right, and the cast and the crew of "Hair Love" arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) (Photo: Jordan Strauss, Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Just a few weeks ago, Texas student DeAndre Arnold was banned from receiving his diploma at his high school’s graduation ceremony because administrators said his dreadlocks violated its dress code. A policy that was changed only after Arnold began growing his locks.
On Feb. 9, when director Matthew Cherry and producer Karen Rupert Tolliver walked the red carpet in Los Angeles to receive their first Oscars for the animated short “Hair Love,” a cartoon about a black father learning to style his young daughter’s thick, afro-textured hair, Arnold walked alongside them — all three wearing elegantly styled locks.
