NYT Article: The Disturbing Truth About Hair Relaxers

[yamilee21]

The Disturbing Truth About Hair Relaxers

They’ve been linked to reproductive disorders and cancers. Why are they still being marketed so aggressively to Black women?

www.nytimes.com

It’s too long to copy and paste, but I have provided a gift link to get through the paywall. Basically, black women doctors/scientists have done research showing that there may be real health risks related to regular usage of relaxers - not just hair and scalp damage, but cancers. It’s not hair products in general, but specifically hair products marketed to black women/afro-textured hair, because the differences in disease rates point to relaxers.

Anyway, it’s a very interesting article, worth the read, and shows that no one is going to look out for us, so we need to be positioned to do it ourselves.

 

[jamaica68]

I saw the clip on Good Morning America the other day.

 

[VinDieselsWifey]

I wish these studies would name what the endocrine disrupting chemicals are. And as far as I know formaldehyde & its derivatives are used in the Brazilian keratin/amino treatments & not relaxers. Relaxers use lye & no-lye chemicals and perms use thio. I used to use the old school hair grease as a kid and that was petroleum and maybe some olive oil at the bottom of the list. I don’t know what the shampoos or conditioners I used as a kid had in them. I got my first relaxer at 12 and it burned my scalp but I was just happy to have straight hair