As a young black woman, I went through my childhood with relaxed hair. Don’t get me wrong, having your hair relaxed is a form of black beauty, but it has been found that many relaxer products that are supposed to be safe can now cause uterine cancer. This affects hair dyes, perms, relaxers, and straighteners (which can affect anyone). The association between hair straightening products and uterine cancer was most prominent in black women.   

Now in this time, there is a growing popularity of relaxers. As a matter of fact, there is a whole community behind the idea that having your hair relaxed is better than having natural kinky curls of hair. Many black women are now switching to relaxed hair because of 3 key reasons. One is because of the community surrounding natural hair – many have called it a cut-throat community full of rules, and a standard of what your curls need to look like. Another standard is that your baby’s hair needs to be laid for your hair to look presentable, a lot of pressures and rules surround the community. 

Although this information is not new information, it has been known for a while that relaxing your hair can cause damage to your body and the hair itself. Now considering this new science of information regarding relaxed hair, I feel as if it shouldn’t matter what beauty standards are being pushed – your health should be the most important factor through everything. What do you think? Is the style worth the risk?