Read Your Labels

It's always wise to check the list of ingredients on your hair, body and face products before purchasing. Read your labels carefully when buying hair, body and face products. Most of the commercially available hair, body and face products today use harmful, potentially carcinogenic ingredients. If you have a reaction to a product that you're using then stop immediately. Listed below are just some of the worst commonly found product ingredients you can put on your hair and body.  The more of a particular ingredient you have in a product, the closer it is to the top of the list of ingredients on the bottle:

Petrolatum and Mineral Oil: Commonly known as petroleum jelly. Mineral oil is a derivative of crude oil (petroleum) that is used industrially as a cutting fluid and lubricating oil. Petroleum based products can clog your pores and cause skin eruptions and black heads because it doesn't allow the skin to breathe and release toxins.

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) or Sodium Laureth Ether Sulfate (SLES): This ingredient is used in about 90% of all shampoos and products that foam as well as cosmetics, toothpaste and conditioners. It's also found in detergents and surfactants that are commonly used in engine degreasers, car wash soaps, and garage floor cleaners. A small amount generates a large quantity of foam and when salt is added it thickens up, giving the illusion of being concentrated. Since the costs of these ingredients are so cheap they are used in personal care products a lot.

Parabens: are often used in skin and body care products as preservatives. Parabens have been associated with breast cancer and can cause the skin to loose its pigment.

Isopropyl Alcohol: is found in hand lotions, body rubs, hair color rinses, after shave lotions, fragrances and many other body products.  It's a pertroleum derived substance that is used in antifreeze and as a solvent in shellac. Isopropyl alcohol is a solvent and denaturant (poisonous substance that changes another substances natural qualities). It will dry your hair out and break it off.

Polyethylene Glycol (PEG): is used not only to thicken products but in making cleaners to dissolve oil and grease. They are often used in caustic spray on oven cleaners due to their effectiveness and are found in many personal care products. PEG's leave the immune system vulnerable by stripping the body and hair of it's natural moisture factor. PEG is a carcinogenic.

Imidazolidinyl Urea and DMDM Hydantoin: These two preservatives release formaldehyde and exposure to formaldehyde can cause dizziness, allergies, loss of sleep, and joint pain among many other aliments. Serious side effects include weakening of the immune system and cancer. Almost all hair, skin and body products contain these formaldehyde releasing agents.

Chemical Hair Products: Health Reperucussions

Here's a great article on the health repercussions of chemical hair products featured in Collective Voices by Dr. Ami Zota and Trina Jackson via SisterSong

Over the last three decades, the environmental justice movement has been highlighting the impacts of structural racism on the health and environment of communities of color. The severe environmental degradation within our communities not only permeates where we live, work, and play, but it also affects women’s bodies, the first environment for all of us. Chemical exposures encountered by the fetus in the womb can have long lasting effects on the reproductive health of our children and likely play a role in the disturbing and ever increasing health conditions within the Black community including low birth weight, obesity, early puberty, and breast cancer mortality especially among young Black women. In this article, we seek to raise awareness about an emerging reproductive justice issue – the environmental injustice of beauty – by discussing social constructions of beauty, resulting coping mechanisms including chemical hair products and their public health repercussions.


The dominant culture of the U.S. idealizes the physical characteristics of White women and measures women of color against this arbitrary standard. As a result, natural, kinky hair-which is most associated with blackness-has been tied to inferiority in the United States. Even, within the African American community, there exists a stratum between those with "good hair" and "bad hair." In these terms, “good hair” is associated with being straight, smooth, long, and easy to manage. “Bad hair” is associated with being kinky, short, rough and hard to manage.

These mainstream notions of beauty and attractiveness have not only been reinforced by the media but also by our families and community social norms causing a lot of stress and self loathing in Black women. As a result, Black women have turned to the widespread use of chemically-intensive hair straighteners as a form of self-medication, a hypothesis that suggests that Black women have used and often abused chemical hair products to cope with the constant assault of White beauty standards.

Chemically relaxed hair is currently the most popular style choice for Black women. In a recent study, 80 percent of the Black women surveyed responded that they believed relaxed hair is more easily maintained than natural hair. Black women spend approximately $50 million per year on chemical straighteners alone. Walk into any pharmacy and you'll see a deluge of harsh chemical products that promise black women “unnappy hair”.

However, little attention has been given to the safety of chemicals in hair creams and lotions. Many hair products marketed to the Black community contain placenta, hormones such as estrogen, and toxic chemicals that have the ability to mimic our bodies’ natural hormones. Synthetic hormones, such as hormone replacement therapy, increase breast cancer risk. Animal studies show that estrogen-mimicking chemicals cause mammary gland tumors, and affect sexual and reproductive development so even small exposures to these chemicals during critical periods (like pregnancy and early childhood) can have a large public health impact. It is difficult to know if personal care products contain dangerous chemicals because manufacturers rarely list all the ingredients. Silent Spring Institute, a nonprofit researching women’s health and the environment, is currently testing African American hair products for hormonally active ingredients to advance our understanding of how hair products may increase health risks in women of color.

In the meantime, we need to educate ourselves and our communities and push for healthier, less toxic hair products. More importantly, we must avoid blame, and recognize that similar to other forms of substance abuse, the widespread use of hair straighteners is a coping mechanism to internalized racism and systemic oppression. Change must occur both on the personal and community level.

Dr. Ami Zota is a research scientist at Silent Spring Institute where she researches environmental health risks in collaboration with communities of color struggling for environmental justice. Trina Jackson is an activist, educator, and organizer, and chairs the board of Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), a grassroots organization in Roxbury, MA that builds the power of communities of color to achieve environmental justice.