“A Black girl and her braids, a Black girl and her braids.”
The poetic song by Jaylene Clark Owens went viral on social media in 2024, as Black women posted images and videos showcasing the cultural connection between Black women and braids.
This connection has even trickled into the entertainment industry as a form of Black expression.
It is no secret: Black women love braids. But the evidence is in. Synthetic braiding hair does not love Black women. A new study by Consumer Reports suggests that a Black girl may have carcinogens, or cancer-causing substances, and other dangerous chemicals in her synthetic braids.
Consumer Reports tested 10 popular synthetic braiding hair products and found carcinogens and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as acetone in all 10 products and lead in nine products. Volatile organic compounds are compounds that turn into gas at room temperature.
“I’m deeply concerned to hear about the findings of this report. The presence of known carcinogens in hair products that many of my clients use is very alarming, something that I think everyone should take very, very seriously,”
Dionne James, master cosmetologist, instructor and long-time hair braider said to The Final Call. “I’ve been braiding hair for the past 35 years, and I’ve been using synthetic hair all these years.”
Dr. James E. Rogers, director and head of product safety testing at Consumer Reports, and his team set out to test synthetic braiding hair in 2024 with the goals to determine and measure the chemicals present and to determine possible risk to product consumers.
The team tested 20 samples, two samples of each product. The products were from the brands Sensationnel, Magic Fingers, Sassy Collection, Shake-N-Go, Hbegant, Debut and Darling. The Final Call reached out to six of the seven brands and did not receive a response.
Health risks
Three products contained benzene, a known carcinogen. Long-term health effects can include anemia, bone marrow damage, leukemia and negative fertility effects in women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
All of the products contained methylene chloride. Short-term exposure can cause harm to the central nervous system, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Long-term exposure can cause liver toxicity and liver and lung cancer.
The amounts of lead and VOCs were also of concern to the researchers.
“Lead is a neurotoxin,” Dr. Brianna X Alexander-Phillips, a biomedical scientist, said to The Final Call. In children, lead can cause lowered IQ, damage to the brain and nervous system,.
Learning and behavioral difficulties, slowed growth, hearing problems and headaches, and in adults, reproductive problems, high blood pressure and hypertension, nerve disorders, memory and concentration problems and muscle and joint pain, according to the EPA.
Every sample of the synthetic hair tested contained at least six VOCs. Health effects of VOCs can include eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, loss of coordination, nausea, damage to the liver and kidney and possible cancer, according to the EPA.
How often do Black women get synthetic braiding hair? Ms. James said her customers return every four to six weeks like clockwork. She pinpointed three main reasons why Black women get synthetic braiding hair:
One, due to the longevity and easier maintenance when going about daily life, two, to experiment with different styles and colors without harming their natural hair and three, because it’s protective.
“It’s considered a protective style. But I don’t know, we gotta use that word loosely, now. I don’t know if it’s protecting us. It may be killing us,” she said.
Ms. James, who is also an author, real estate investor and entrepreneur, operates her hair studio, in metro-Atlanta and specializes in natural hair and hair braiding extensions. In the past, she used to burn the ends of the hair, a common ritual for hair braiders.
But burning synthetic hair could potentially release the VOCs present.
“At one point at the beginning of my career, we burned them all the time. So, all those fumes we were inhaling, you don’t know if they may have left a lifetime effect on your health, and it may not come up until way later,” Ms. James said.
She expressed concern for the health of her clients, herself and other beauticians.
For biologist Dr. Christina Parks, the cancer-causing potential is not the biggest concern regarding the chemicals found. She completed honors research in organic chemistry as an undergraduate and has worked with some of the chemicals mentioned in the study.
“These are not the most carcinogenic compounds. In fact, I worked with these every day when I worked in an organic chemistry lab,” she said to The Final Call.
“Honestly, I think that’s one of the reasons I became infertile, because I inhaled so many of these organic compounds like benzene and toluene. I haven’t developed cancer, mind you, but it made me infertile.”
Dr. Parks explained that VOCs can enter through skin and can travel into a person’s bloodstream and into their tissue, making their way to the ovaries.
“This hair is plastic, and you may have heard we’re not supposed to heat up plastic in the microwave,” she said. “It’s because endocrine-disruption chemicals come from the plastic into the fat in our food.”
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals “are natural or human-made chemicals that may mimic, block, or interfere with the body’s hormones,” according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. They are found in many plastics.
Because the endocrine-disrupting chemicals are hormone-like, once the chemicals travel to the body’s tissue and to a woman’s ovaries, they are capable of binding to the DNA and changing the expression of genes in the ovaries and in the womb, Dr. Parks explained.
This could affect the development of testosterone and the brain of male offspring and cause a variety of health problems in women.
It may cause endometriosis, premature puberty or uterine fibroids, Dr. Parks explained. It is going to cause uterine fibroids, Dr. Parks said. She looked into products like Kanekalon.
Which is a popular fiber produced by the company, Kaneka, “widely used for synthetic braiding hair and other synthetic hair attachments such as wigs,” according to the product’s website.
“Some of these are made out of something called acrylonitrile,” she said.
Breathing high concentrations of the chemical can cause nose and throat irritation, difficulty breathing, nausea, dizziness, weakness, headache, impaired judgment and convulsions, the CDC says on their Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Research and regulation
In recent years, more Black women have been researching the topic of harmful substances in synthetic hair products.
Five years ago, in 2020, Black women promoting natural hair published YouTube videos on the dangers of Kanekalon fibers. The videos exposed a few of the toxic ingredients that make up Kanekalon fibers, including acrylonitrile and vinyl chloride.
“I remember reading about vinyl chloride. I know that’s also something that is used in the production of plastic, and it’s also a known carcinogen,” Dr. Alexander-Phillips said.
Dr. Elissia Franklin, an analytical chemist and a scientist with Silent Spring Institute who considers herself a “beauty justice scientist,” became concerned about the potential hazards of synthetic hair in 2018 after getting rash outbreaks on her neck while wearing synthetic braids.
In 2022, when she started researching chemicals in consumer products, she proposed a project to look for toxics in synthetic hair. She submitted a manuscript titled, “Identifying chemicals of health concern in hair extensions” in 2024 to a scientific journal which is under review.
Chrystal Thomas, graduate of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, published commentary on the topic in 2023, titled, “Carcinogenic materials in synthetic braids: an unrecognized risk of hair products for Black women.”
Despite Black women looking into the topic for the past few years, those interviewed by The Final Call say more research and regulation are needed.
“As I looked, a lot of the studies haven’t been done. They can do the studies to prove it, so we have one more thing to go, ‘Oh, my God, this is terrible.’ Or we can just use our common sense and be like, this is probably not a good idea, so let’s find some safer, more natural fibers to use for this hair,” Dr. Parks said.
“At some point, do we need to know anymore? Can we just say we need to make a change and minimize your usage, wash your hair, buy safer hair, and then we can get some of our people to make products that are safe,” she added.
Ms. James believes the manufacturers of the hair products should be held accountable and that beauty industry regulators and federal agencies should take responsibility to strengthen safety standards and increase testing requirements.
Consumer Reports says that it contacted both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Personal Care Products Council, a national trade association that represents hundreds of global cosmetics and personal care products companies. Though the FDA regulates cosmetic products, the agency could not comment on the test results.
“In searching the FDA Hair Products page, there is no indication that braiding hair has ever been reported as being unsafe, nor have there been any recalls. It appears that this regulatory agency does not presently have specific information on braiding hair products and adverse or harmful reactions,” the Consumer Reports article says.
As for the Personal Care Products Council, a spokesperson told Consumer Reports that it “does not represent the synthetic braiding industry, so we cannot provide commentary.”
Dr. Parks highlighted the lack of real regulation for beauty products predominantly used by Black women. “Across the board, this is not being regulated, and you cannot trust the labels, because when they’re tested, they have all kinds of stuff in there that’s not on the label.
So, this is an area that absolutely needs to be addressed and that our people specifically are being hurt as a result of the lack of oversight of these types of products,” she said.
Dr. Alexander-Phillips explained how the dangers of the chemicals in the hair can be multifold.
“They talk about how the hair is manufactured by one company, but then you may have another company that does the processing, like the coloring of the hair. And so now you don’t know what kind of methods are used. You don’t know the chemicals. There’s a lot of ambiguity on how the hair is actually being synthesized and processed,” she said.
She described any bit of information that helps understand the chemical effect, exposure and risk of synthetic hair as a step forward.
“There’s never actually a safety label on hair,” she said. “It’s just very interesting how a lot of these products are fairly unregulated, and there’s a lot of ambiguity on what’s actually in them.”
According to Consumer Reports, “Black women are the primary users of these products, and people of African descent are the largest group of consumers of hair wigs and extensions. In 2023, the U.S. market for these products was valued at $2.79 billion and is expected to reach a value of $6.34 billion by 2029.”
Ensuring safety
Dr. Parks recommended finding safer hair brands and possibly resorting to the more expensive route of buying human hair.
For Ms. James, the solution is to go natural. “Start embracing your own natural hair, because there are beautiful styles that we can do with our natural hair.
When you’re taking care of it, you’re moisturizing it correctly, trims and hydration treatments, your hair will grow out. It really will. Just start taking control of your own hair,” she said. She went natural 25 years ago.
She explained that there are a lot of different styles Black women and girls can embrace that are very beautiful. “There’s so many beautiful styles that we can embrace on our own natural hair,” she said. “That would be my advice: go natural.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has spoken on the natural beauty of Black women.
“Take better care of the hair that’s under that weave, You are already beautiful,” he said in a message titled, “Life Demands Something From Us: The Power Of Faith And Economics,” delivered at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., on May 22, 2016.
He was speaking at an event connected to a Black entrepreneurs’ meeting under the leadership of Joe Dudley, then president and chief executive officer for Dudley’s, a manufacturer and distributor of Black hair and skincare products.
