US senate to regulate hair straighteners | Graphic by Arden Reimer | The Wright State Guardian
The Food and Drug Administration is being pushed by lawmakers to ban harmful hair straightening products for people of color. Some of these products have been found to have formaldehyde.
What is happening?
In October of 2023, The FDA proposed a ban on hair straightening products that contain formaldehyde, due to its toxic properties. These “relaxers” have been known to release formaldehyde in the chemical reaction made to straighten the hair.
What is a hair straightening product?
A hair straightening product (or “relaxer”) is a product that chemically straightens your hair for a long period of time. It is mainly used in Black spaces and on people with extremely textured and curly hair.
It chemically changes the makeup of the proteins in hair to make it straight.
The issue comes during the chemical process. According to the FDA, for most of the styles this product is used with a flat ironing tool. When the solution comes into contact with the heat, it activates the formaldehyde in the product. Then it releases it in the form of smoke.
Formaldehyde is a very toxic substance that can lead to several short and long term issues. Some of these include things as small as watery eyes and dermatological issues or as big as cancer.
Sherri Powell, a family practitioner at Rocking Horse Medical Center, talks about this issue.
“Formaldehyde is generally not a good substance all around, and any sensible doctor will tell you that it is unsafe to be [in contact with]. It is one of those things that is hard to avoid [because] it is a product of a lot of chemical reactions, but it becomes a problem when there is too much of it or directly inhaled,” Powell said.
The potential FDA ban would require companies that make these products to change formulation to remove this reaction.
Community reaction
The community is widely divided on this issue. Some are strictly for the ban, like local resident Athena Croker, who says that they are happy about the ban.
“I think that it’s a good thing. I’ve had friends that have had burns on their scalp and their hair pattern changed forever. I feel like there needs to be more industry standard on healthy hair products in the Black community,” explained Croker.
Some agree that there needs to be more work done in the community, but are brought down by choices, like social work major Eunice Akinade.
“I’m guilty of using it, I think any Black person who has had their hair straightened has. But we have to start using better products and setting an example. The problem is that we don’t have a lot of products to choose from that don’t have the same problem,” Akinade said.
The FDA is still going over the ban, passing their original date of April 2024.
