Beauty
Did You Really Escape
Harmful Hair Products?
B
eing in the era of appreciation for natural
hair, chemical products, which specialize in
natural hair, continue to grow in sales. One
of the biggest natural hair products, which
has the highest sales of OTC products is edge control.
Edge Control is used to lay down the “baby hairs”, or
edges, for sleeker and natural look.
Hair color and hair dye have also seen great sales
despite the damage they can do to the natural hair;
consumers want to take the risk for the sake of a newer
look. With all these products supporting the natural hair
era growing and growing, one of the African American
favorites has seen a decline in sales because of this: the
relaxer.
A relaxer is used to soften and straighten the natural
hair, often times it is used to make the hair more
manageable. One point that differentiates the relaxer
from natural hair chemical products is that it requires
background knowledge before being used, which
results in appointments from a stylist. Even though
someone who specializes in hair should be applying the
relaxer, consumers often complained how costly and
time consuming the hairdresser. Businesses capitalized
on this complaint and launched at home relaxer lines,
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C O S M O B I Z M A G A Z I N E
creating more problems and risks.
With the convenience of DIY’ing their relaxers and
other treatments at home, many turned to these box
kits. However, a lack of available information and
little information on the risks involved meant that these
DIY’ers were put at greater risk than ever. For a time,
these DIY relaxers seemed like a blessing, but in truth,
their ugly side was just waiting to emerge.
The side effects of the lack of information resulted in
hair loss, chemical burns, and a variety of issues. As
the availability of information grew, many consumers
found that sodium hydroxide (also called NaOH or lye),
which can burn skin among the various ingredients in
the relaxer, is one of the main ingredients responsible
for hair loss. With the bad news spreading and the
newfound awareness of the chemicals inside relaxers,
consumers have concluded that relaxers are a highly
dangerous and harmful chemical product.
With further research, sodium hydroxide is not a bad
chemical for the body. However, since it is a strong
alkaline chemical, it can cause burns. A little scientific,
but briefly stated, OH is the elemental symbol of
hydroxide, if you’ll think back to your science classes,