A Relaxer Reckoning

A vast majority of Black women — approaching 90 percent — have used a chemical hair relaxer to straighten their natural curls. Some use it every other month, beginning in childhood.

But these products, applied in salons or at home, disrupt the endocrine system, according to a growing body of evidence. They’re linked to early puberty and many reproductive health issues that can follow: uterine fibroids, preterm birth, infertility and cancers (breast, ovarian and uterine), many of which disproportionately affect Black women. The products, which aggressively target Black girls and women who believe these chemicals are safe, have almost no oversight.

I began reporting a story about “creamy crack,” as chemical hair straightener products are sometimes called, for The Times Magazine more than a year ago, and it published today. At every stage, I was surprised by what I learned. I interviewed government officials and health nonprofit workers, scientists at universities, people taking part in medical studies, plaintiffs in lawsuits, politicians, historians, activists and lawyers.

I spoke with Jenny Mitchell, now 34, who had used hair relaxers nearly all her life. She’d always wanted to have children, and in 2018 she visited a fertility specialist. But what Mitchell thought would be a happy new beginning led to heart-stopping news. “During the ultrasound, the physician said, ‘I see something; I think we need to do a biopsy right now,’” she recalls. “He did a biopsy that day, and then three days later, I got a call saying that I had uterine cancer.” To preserve her life, doctors removed her uterus and then gave her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Mitchell could no longer have children.

The new research

Black female epidemiologists raised many of the questions that propelled the new research. All told me that their personal experience drove them to pursue the connection between the chemicals in these products and the racial disparities in reproductive health that scientists have struggled to explain for decades. Tamarra James-Todd, a public health professor at Harvard, is their pioneer. James-Todd recalled sitting in a salon as a kid and having relaxers applied to her hair. It felt as if her scalp were on fire. She told me that she now knows her instinct was right: The product being put on her head wasn’t safe.