What's Up With Hair Straightening Treatments?

When I reached out to Brazilian Blowout about their product they had no official response. And the few people I talked to seemed pretty irritated that all of this was being dragged up again. In an information sheet and letter distributed to salons back in 2011, the company claimed that the government and media (hey guys!) were spreading misinformation and that the product “when used properly” was perfectly safe. All that irritation and sickness, that’s apparently our fault.

So, what the hell is going on? Basically, formaldehyde is a gas, not a liquid. So, in order to put it in your products it has to be converted to a liquid. As a liquid, formaldehyde is known as formalin or methalyne glycol and is technically not formaldehyde. The formaldehyde gas is released when the product dries or is exposed to heat, such as with hair dryers and flat irons, all of which are part of the hair straightening process. (I wrote a longer explanation of formaldehyde and how it works here, if you want to get technical.) When I spoke on the phone with Tina Sigurdson, staff attorney for the EWG, she noted that this technical difference is how companies claim to be “formaldehyde-free” while actually being anything but. It also makes it hard to regulate, because the amount of formaldehyde concentration that is released depends largely on individual hairstylists’ methods and product choices.

I reached out to the Personal Care Products Council for some clarity and they pointed me to this statement on formaldehyde in products, which notes that an expert panel commissioned by the council found “ …the safety of methylene glycol and formaldehyde in hair straightening products depends on a number of factors, including the concentration of formaldehyde and methylene glycol, the amount of product applied, the temperature used during the application process, and the ventilation provided at the point of use. The Panel concluded that under present practices of use and concentration, formaldehyde and methylene glycol are unsafe in hair straightening products.”

This is also basically what the FDA says as well. They sent me a statement via email that read: “The FDA continues to evaluate the safety and labeling of hair-smoothing products on a case-by-case basis. However, the Brazilian Blowout Warning Letter is based on a review of a specific product and should not be interpreted as a broad evaluation of the safety of formaldehyde, methylene glycol, or other formaldehyde-related ingredients in cosmetic products generally. Other hair-smoothing products may vary with respect to composition, conditions of use, and other factors. Companies and individuals who manufacture or market cosmetic products have a legal responsibility to ensure the safety and proper labeling of their products and ingredients.”

Basically, what is going on is, salons are using products with formaldehyde in them and it’s causing problems. But as long as people still want these products, the salons will keep using them. And the industry is wary, but permissive. And the FDA, with limited power over personal care products, lives in this nebulous “case-by-case” basis.

So, enter Senators Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). They are co-sponsoring a bill, the Personal Care Products Safety Act 2015, that would give the FDA more regulatory teeth to mandate a recall of personal care products (you know, should a product claim to be poison-free and still have poison in it) and leverage more control over the industry. Sigurdson noted that this bill has “broad-based industry support,” which would make sense because right now, due to lack of FDA authority, states have enacted their own laws, which can get a little confusing for companies. The Cosmetics Ingredients Review did not respond to my attempts to contact them about this bill. But the FDA had this to say, “The Administration has not taken a position on the legislation. However, the Administration recognizes the need to strengthen the FDA’s regulatory program for cosmetics. The President’s FY 2016 budget requests authority to require cosmetic firms to register their establishments and products with the FDA and to pay a user fee. Registration would give FDA basic authority to identify what cosmetic products are being marketed and by whom, and user fees would help pay for this activity. These authorities would be an important step toward improving the agency capacity to promote greater safety and understanding of cosmetic products. Other measures, such as mandatory recall authority, and requiring cosmetics companies to report adverse events and comply with product manufacturing standards, would also be important tools in an enhanced safety program.” Which is encouraging.

The Personal Care Products Council has this statement on the bill, which lends it tepid support. Clarifying in an email, Lauren Brady, Public Affairs Specialist at Personal Care Products Council, noted “…we cannot say we fully support this bill as there are still items that need to be strengthened.”

But the bill does address the formaldehyde-shaped holes in the personal care products industry. Additionally, the funding for the bill would come from the industry itself and would take the regulation out of the industry’s hands (and the hands of consumers and salons) and give it to the government.

Beauty has been synonymous with pain for centuries. Women have used belladonna, or deadly nightshade, in their eyes to make them appear more seductive. Throughout the centuries makeup has contained cyanide, mercury, rat poisoning. Lead makeup made the Romans insane and infertile and killed Marie Gunning, Countess of Coventry, and many others. And without going into the societal, economic and patriarchal factors that lead to all of that, I’m going to say, this bill seems like a pretty good idea. Beauty doesn’t have to hurt.

Bottom line: Save us, Diane Feinstein!

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.