Tylenol.

Lawsuits Allege Insidious Behavior by Hair Relaxer Companies

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/.

The uniform complaints filed by the plaintiffs detail the history of hair relaxers and accuse cosmetic manufacturers of marketing products primarily to Black women and children—further bolstering the historic, Eurocentric beauty standards of straight hair. Cicely A. Richard, The History of Hair Relaxers, Sept. 29, 2017, https://classroom.synonym.com/the-history-of-hair-relaxers-12078983.html.