Hair Relaxer Usage Linked To Reproductive Cancer In Black Women

The Black community has realized that the price of acceptance is killing us.

Black women across the country are joining lawsuits against hair care brands such as SoftSheen, Strength of Nature, Namaste and L’Oreal, claiming that hair relaxers led them to develop reproductive cancer.

Relaxers are chemical treatments used to permanently straighten afro-textured hair. They are commonly used by Black women multiple times a year; however, the recommended use is two to three times a year.

The product was created in the early 1900s by inventor Garrett Morgan, who discovered a liquid solution containing lye for sewing machines that could straighten hair. By 1909, Morgan developed a hair straightening cream known as the earliest form of relaxer.

Since then, relaxers have taken hold of Black men and women. Most used them to align with racist beauty standards that were seen as “presentable” during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Today, times have changed, and the natural hair movement, which originated during the 1960s amid the Civil Rights Movement and saw a resurgence during the 2000s thanks to the internet, caused women to realize their natural hair is beautiful and should be accepted. 

An alliance of organizations, including founding members Dove, National Urban League, Color of Change and Western Center on Law and Poverty, known as the CROWN: Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Coalition has fought to ban hair discrimination in the workplace since 2019.

So, yes, things have changed since the 1900s, but the prolonged effects of hair relaxers have permeated the bodies of Black women.

Many of the lawsuits aim to compensate Black women diagnosed with cancer from hair relaxers. 

The main chemical in question is Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, or DEHP, an endocrine-disrupting chemical known to make substances more flexible, which has been linked to reproductive cancer, uterine fibroids, abnormal fetal development and infertility. 

Missouri resident Jenny Mitchell started using relaxers when she was eight years old. At 28, Mitchell was diagnosed with uterine cancer and had to get a hysterectomy.

In October of 2022, she filed a lawsuit against the company L’Oreal which produces some of the popular hair relaxers under brands like Dark and Lovely and ORS Olive Oil. 

“Our highest priority is the health, wellness and safety of all our consumers,” said a spokesperson for L’Oreal in an article in The Guardian. “We are confident in the safety of our products and believe the recent lawsuits filed against us in the US have no legal merit.” 

Currently, Black women experience the highest rates of reproductive cancer. Reports from the The National Institute of Health shows Black women are twice more likely to die from uterine cancer than women of other races. 

Black women have been told that this product would make us accepted, and now hundreds are battling the repercussions. 

With the ongoing research, scientists have taken great efforts to provide us with information so we know what can harm our bodies. Now that Black women are aware of the consequences, we should change the standard of beauty pushed onto us.  

We have reached an era where Black women should feel comfortable with any hairstyle they choose, whether natural, straightened or in protective styles. 

Meanwhile, hair relaxers should be pulled from the market until safe formulas are available. 

Our lives are not worth a different hair texture.