When Maeva Heim made the decision to stop chemically straightening her hair after two decades, her search for less abrasive products left her empty. The multicultural hair aisle in her local store has few if not any options for Black Hair that are free of harsh chemicals.
“It seems like this whole category has really been left behind,” said Heim, who has gone on to launch her own clean hair care brand for Black women, Bread Beauty Supply. “Beauty is making strides and advances, and this category seems to be ten, twenty years behind.”
Hair care products and cosmetics in general have been thoroughly tested because ingredients such as talc and formaldehyde have been linked to early puberty. cancer and reproductive health problems. Top dry shampoo brands including several made by Unilever Plc were recently found to contain benzene, a carcinogen, leading to a boom in demand for alternatives. However, the movement to get rid of harsh chemicals, especially in hair care, did not quickly expand into products marketed to Black women, who on average used multiple hair care products. twice as long as Caucasian women and may be at higher risk.
From 2019 to early 2020, a study called Take Stock surveyed women across California to ask what types of products they used and how often by race, and found that Black women regularly use about 7 hair products – twice as many as Caucasian women – in many cases. because of the pressure to assimilate to standards like straight, flat hair.
Increase
Those choices can be dangerous: Women who regularly use chemical hair straighteners are more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer than those who don’t, according to a recent study of nearly 34,000 women from the National Institutes of Health. Exposure was disproportionately high for Black women, who made up 60% of the participants who had ever used a straightener.
In 2011, a team at Harvard University published research that found a link between chemicals in frequently used hair care products and early puberty in black girls. Early puberty is also a risk factor for breast cancer. Regular exposure can also lead to a higher risk of premature birth, lower birth weight in babies, and cardiovascular problems in pregnant women. These chemicals are found in products that black women use every day: daily conditioners, hair conditioners, lotions, and blends.
Tamarra James-Todd, an associate professor of environmental reproductive epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health who led the 2011 effort, says from her own experience as a black woman that hair both a cultural pillar and a cause of health concerns in the community. She started this research two decades ago and has since discovered a link to fertility complications and hair dye. The researchers say that this issue has not been given enough attention.
“Change is accelerating, but it is too slow,” said Bhavna Shamasunder, associate professor of urban and environmental policy at Occidental College and lead researcher on the Take Stock study. “I think when something is slow and hard, people stop paying attention to it.”
Retailers and companies have their own “no ingredients” ingredient lists, with chemicals like phthalates, sulfates, and formaldehyde often overlooked. Such ingredients are called endocrine disruptors because they interfere with normal hormonal function. About 75% of the products sold to Black women that the Environmental Working Group analyzed in its database contained endocrine-disrupting chemicals. About 60% of those sold to the public contained similar harmful ingredients.
This problem exists in contrast to an explosion of non-toxic cosmetics marketed to white women. According to Marie Driscoll, at research firm Coresight Research, the clean beauty industry is currently a $7 billion market and is expected to grow to $10 billion by 2026. When it comes to beauty purchases , being a clean brand is more important to Black women than it is to their white counterparts – for example, 77% of Black consumers like Heim are influenced to buy skin care products clean, compared with 67% of white consumers, according to data from the NPD Group, a market research firm.
Outdated regulations
Critics also allege that the cosmetics industry is not tightly regulated, making it difficult for consumers to hold companies accountable for damage caused by chemicals in products. The US Food and Drug Administration does not require product testing, ultimately leaving it to individual manufacturers. For years, health activists have pushed for a more rigorous testing process similar to that in Europe, which has banned or restricted more than 2,000 chemicals in cosmetics: the US banned only 11.
“Product regulations are amazingly outdated,” said Robin Dodson, associate director of research operations at the Silent Spring Institute. “The FDA doesn’t have any authority to really be in this space. The only way the FDA can resolve something is if a formal complaint has been filed. “
A company spokesperson said cosmetics giant Sephora launched its “Clean at Sephora” program in 2018 with 50 brand partners, a number that has grown to 130 this year, although they declined. discloses sales figures for clean products marketed specifically to Black women.
When it comes to beauty purchases, being a clean brand is more important to Black women than it is to their White counterparts (Source: Getty Images/Thinkstock)
While not specifically related to clean beauty, Sephora has committed to giving at least 15% of its overall shelf space to black-owned companies by 2020. Retailer Ulta Beauty, who also joined the pledge, offers 15 black-owned beauty brands out of a total of 300.
Even so, brand owners like Nyakio Grieco do not find it easy to enter the market. She created a clean skin care brand for women of color using a beauty tradition passed down from her Kenyan grandmother, a coffee farmer who taught her to grind the grounds and apply them to her skin for treatment. dry skin.
“I get a lot of unanswered emails and calls from retailers,” she said. And more brands are needed, she added. “We have a long way to go when it comes to inclusivity, but it shouldn’t rest on the shoulders of Black business owners alone.”
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