A growing number of products liability lawsuits have been lodged against manufacturers of chemical hair relaxers, including the cosmetic giant, L’Oréal, for negligently failing to warn women about the elevated risk of hormone-sensitive cancers and other injuries. Chemical hair relaxing, or lanthionization, breaks down disulfide bonds to relax or loosen the curl pattern of the hair. Groundbreaking scientific literature has sounded the alarm on the link between adverse health conditions and chronic exposure to carcinogenic and hormonally active compounds in hair relaxers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require manufacturers to list specific hair relaxing ingredients, allowing them to obscure the presence of phthalates known to cause endocrine disruption. These detrimental effects manifest over years of exposure as many women use different product lines throughout their lives—often beginning at childhood. Multiple factors have influenced the pervasiveness of Black women’s use of hair relaxing products for the last century and a half, including: slavery and internalization of acceptable beauty norms, advertisements and media, assimilation and economic security, ease of maintenance, and adherence to cultural norms. Chanel Donaldson, Hair Alteration Practices Amongst Black Women and the Assumption of Self-Hatred, NYU Applied Psychol. OPUS (Fall 2012), https://wp.nyu.edu/steinhardt-appsych_opus/hairalteration-practices-amongst-black-women-and-the-assumption-of-self-hatred/.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]