Haircare shouldn’t cost us our health. Yet for Black and mixed heritage women, mainstream shampoos and conditioners come with a huge risk.
Earlier this month, a new study showed how parabens in Black haircare can fuel cancer cells in Black women. Just a few weeks before that, research was published showing that the majority of Black British women have experienced hair loss and scalp burns from using hair relaxers. Dangerous products in the Black haircare industry are rife. This is a topic we’ve been talking about for years, and yet little is changing in the wider industry. In 2016, we shared a report showing that Black haircare products can cause skin and eye irritation, respiratory disorders, cancers and reproductive Issues.
Another report showed “in an analysis of ingredients in 1,177 beauty and personal care products marketed to Black women, about one in 12 was ranked highly hazardous”. We raised awareness around this 6 years ago and little has changed. This isn’t good enough.
Research has revealed 78% of products on the Black hair care market have been found to have toxic products leading to a multitude of health problems for Black and mixed-race women: cancers, hormone disruption, developmental and reproductive damage, allergies and other adverse health effects.
We don’t think it’s right that there are so few safe, effective options for people with Afro and curly hair. People like us have been shouting about the need for transparent, safe natural products for years and we even started Afrocenchix out of frustration with the dangerous products being branded as organic and sold at a premium.
Change is needed now. We need your help to make that happen, so we’re crowdfunding to release safe and ethical styling products and conditioners. By backing our campaign you can help more people access safe, effective haircare products whilst also taking the opportunity to buy a stake in Afrocenchix.
You can read about our campaign on our Seedrs page and watch our campaign video below.
With around 3.2 billion people worldwide with afro hair, there are huge opportunities for those that want to revolutionise the black hair care industry.
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