when i saw report About the National Institutes of Health study Women who used chemical curling irons, known as relaxers, were found to be more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer than those who did not. A flashback of the sulfur scent brought me back to my first experience relaxing my hair.
When I was 10 or 11 years old, my mother was preparing me and my sister for the Easter church service the next day. She wore our frilly white dress with matching ankle socks and black patent leather Mary Janes. All I had to do that Saturday evening was my hair, so my mom pulled out a box of children’s ashless relaxers and transformed into a kitchen table chemist.
Michigan bans discrimination based on hair
She mixed a small bottle of activator into a jar of relaxer base, and the sticky, pale pink mixture smelled like rotten eggs or something you could use to clean the bathroom. It worried me a little, but the relaxer process promises to transform my naturally kinky African-American hair into silky smooth hair that can be adorned with barrettes like the little girl on the box. It wasn’t enough to deter me. There was also nothing on the package that said the relaxer was unsafe unless it got in your eyes.
So I squeezed my eyes shut while my mother applied a thin layer of Vaseline to my hairline. “Don’t burn your skin,” my mother said. She carefully worked the relaxer into my hair with the same deft movements she uses when making an iced cake. When I told her that I was starting to tingle, she said that was a sign that the treatment was working.
Over time, the tingling sensation turned into an itch, which turned into a burning sensation. It felt like a hot curling iron was being pressed directly to the top of my head, sending intense waves of heat throughout my head and making my still-closed eyes water. But I was finally able to bend over the bathroom sink and allow my mom to wash the relaxer out of my hair. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw that my hair was hanging limply instead of in its usual tight coils. That’s what my elders sometimes called that look. Diapers. ” Then my mom styled my hair to resemble the straight hair of the Relaxer Box Girl and I was so happy.
That night, my mom followed me and my sister in applying her own relaxer. At the time, we didn’t know what we were doing now. Relaxers are a byproduct of the discrimination and beauty standards that people of African hair have faced for centuries in America. Preferred Eurocentric features Straight hair, thin nose, thin lips, white skin, etc. Relaxing has long been the way many black women live up to this standard, both to advance their careers and to appear “good,” “proper,” and “stylish” to the larger white society. It was often necessary to be considered as such.
It’s only now that the message these standards send – that black hair with natural, kinky curls is unattractive, tidy, or stylish – is being challenged in our society. This is recent, as evidenced by the passage of legislation such as the so-called Crown Act in 2020. Has been updated Virginia Human Rights Nondiscrimination Act Include “characteristics historically associated with race, such as hair texture, hair type, and protective hairstyles such as braids, hair, and twists.”
Codifying the acceptance of black hair in public accommodations and employment is great progress, but for many black women it may have come too late.
The NIH is not alone in discovering the link between relaxers and cancer. Last month, Boston University released the following report: new research The paper reports that “long-term use of chemical hair relaxers by postmenopausal black women is associated with increased risk of uterine cancer.” The study followed 45,000 women for 22 years and looked at hair relaxer use and cancer incidence. The disparities found between black women and other women are startling.
“In our statistical analysis, we did our best to adjust for other possible explanations for why the women got cancer,” said Kimberly Burt, an epidemiologist and associate professor of medicine at Boston University, one of the study authors. Rand said. “We took into account and ruled out other risk factors for uterine cancer that we are aware of, such as obesity and reproductive problems.
“This type of study design cannot prove causation, but it can prove correlation,” she continued. “There is strong biological plausibility that some of the chemicals in these products affect the hormonal system and may be associated with cancer.”
Like many cosmetic and beauty products, hair relaxers are loosely regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The lack of strict oversight could potentially put people who use them at risk, said Lee Floyd, a Richmond-based attorney who was appointed to the plaintiff steering committee in the massive lawsuit. he said. class action lawsuit For several global beauty brands that manufacture and sell hair relaxers. Floyd said the lawsuit now includes more than 8,200 women who developed cancer after using relaxers, including “hundreds” from Virginia. That’s what it means.
“These products are sold to women of color in the United States and around the world. It is sold as being made from ‘natural’ substances,” she said. “What we now know is that these hair relaxer products contain dangerous carcinogens and that women and children are still applying them to their hair without any warning about the carcinogens. That’s what I’m saying. It breaks my heart.”
In addition to compensating victims for the harm that relaxers may have caused, the lawsuit also requires beauty brands to disclose on packaging and marketing materials that their products contain dangerous carcinogenic substances. They also want to be forced to do so. Many women, including my mother, sister, and I, would not have used relaxer boxes if they had included those types of warnings in the first place.
Master stylists and sisters Aleta Smith and Aleta Johnson may be having second thoughts about applying treatments to their clients’ hair as well.
“I’ve provided countless relaxation services,” said Smith, who has worked as a stylist in Hanover County for 40 years, primarily serving black women. None of her customers have developed uterine cancer, and the box relaxer at the center of the lawsuit has a different chemistry than the professional pre-mixed relaxer she and her sister use. She said she was interested in whether it contained any substances.
Although Smith now applies fewer relaxers due to the back-to-natural hair movement that has swept the nation in recent years, she said: every 6 weeks. Some of them wanted it sooner than 6 weeks, but I wouldn’t give it to them. ”
After retiring from Twin Images, the salon she shared with Smith, Johnson now works as a cosmetology instructor at Rowanti Technical Center, providing hair care to students in Dinwiddie, Prince George’s and Sussex County Public Schools. She teaches stylist skills and prepares for entrance exams for the state cosmetology department. License exam. Johnson also said she is not aware of any relaxer customers who have developed uterine cancer, but she stopped relaxing her hair about 10 years ago.
“I’m a cancer survivor and the texture of my hair was starting to change,” she said. “And I realized that I could get the same look without a relaxer, and my hair was healthier and less prone to thinning.”
If she were still in the stylist’s chair, Johnson said she would advise her clients to “really think twice about getting a relaxer right now.” What you do with your hair is a personal choice, but studies like these make me skeptical of hair relaxers. ”
It’s been more than 10 years since I last used Creamy Crack, commonly known as a relaxer in black culture. My decision to quit wasn’t about the health risks (which I didn’t know existed), but about the fact that, as an African American woman, I can wear my hair with its natural texture with pride. It was to make it possible. Eurocentric beauty standards are abhorrent because black people are beautiful.
I know many women who have rejected the socio-cultural programming of their mothers and grandmothers’ generation that mandated relaxation when styling their hair, but I also know women who still relax their hair. It’s their choice and it’s the right thing to do. But everyone also has the right to be informed about the cancer risks that relaxants may pose, so that they can safely make the choices that best suit them, their hair, and their definition of beauty. Should.
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