The danger of hair relaxers (2024)

Good morning. Today, Linda Villarosa uncovers a health threat for many Black women. We’re also covering the G7, abortion and Jerry West. —David Leonhardt

Getting a treatment.Naila Ruechel for The New York Times

A vast majority of Black women — approaching 90 percent — have used a chemical hair relaxer to straighten their natural curls. Some use it every other month, beginning in childhood.

But these products, applied in salons or at home, disrupt the endocrine system, according to a growing body of evidence. They’re linked to early puberty and many reproductive health issues that can follow: uterine fibroids, preterm birth, infertility and cancers (breast, ovarian and uterine), many of which disproportionately affect Black women. The products, which aggressively target Black girls and women who believe these chemicals are safe, have almost no oversight.

I began reporting a story about “creamy crack,” as chemical hair straightener products are sometimes called, for The Times Magazine more than a year ago, and it published today. At every stage, I was surprised by what I learned. I interviewed government officials and health nonprofit workers, scientists at universities, people taking part in medical studies, plaintiffs in lawsuits, politicians, historians, activists and lawyers.

A 1960s ad for a hair relaxer.Granger

I spoke with Jenny Mitchell, now 34, who had used hair relaxers nearly all her life. She’d always wanted to have children, and in 2018 she visited a fertility specialist. But what Mitchell thought would be a happy new beginning led to heart-stopping news. “During the ultrasound, the physician said, ‘I see something; I think we need to do a biopsy right now,’” she recalls. “He did a biopsy that day, and then three days later, I got a call saying that I had uterine cancer.” To preserve her life, doctors removed her uterus and then gave her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Mitchell could no longer have children.

The new research

Black female epidemiologists raised many of the questions that propelled the new research. All told me that their personal experience drove them to pursue the connection between the chemicals in these products and the racial disparities in reproductive health that scientists have struggled to explain for decades. Tamarra James-Todd, a public health professor at Harvard, is their pioneer. James-Todd recalled sitting in a salon as a kid and having relaxers applied to her hair. It felt as if her scalp were on fire. She told me that she now knows her instinct was right: The product being put on her head wasn’t safe.

Brands for sale.Naila Ruechel for The New York Times

A seminal 2022 study followed nearly 34,000 women for over a decade. It found that those who frequently used chemical hair-straightening products were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer as those who did not. That’s the most common cancer of the female reproductive system, and the most aggressive sub­types have been on the rise for nearly 24 years — particularly among Black women.

The United States is unusually lax about these problems. While the European Union regulates more than 1,300 ingredients for use in cosmetics, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration restricts only nine. Hair relaxers marketed to children, which are packaged with bright colors and photos of adorable little girls, contain high levels of five of the chemicals prohibited in Europe, according to one study. Another found that hormone-disrupting chemicals were in plenty of creams — but not listed as ingredients on the packaging. In October, the F.D.A. finally proposed banning formaldehyde (a toxic preservative) in hair relaxers. It has not set a date to implement the rule.

Plaintiffs have filed thousands of lawsuits since the 2022 study came out. A federal judge has combined them into one big suit. But while Black women have embraced natural styles in recent years (total sales to salons and other hair professionals fell to $30 million, down by half, from 2011 to 2021), these products are still in wide circulation. They fuel a continuing — but preventable — public health crisis.

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