Common chemical hair straighteners, relaxers and synthetic hair pieces, products predominantly marketed to Black girls and women, are laced with carcinogens and other chemicals harmful to the reproductive and endocrine systems, a growing body of studies shows.
This is one of the reasons Colorado lawmakers are working on House Bill 1135, which would require those products to come with a warning label, alerting consumers to the risks hidden in their hair products.
“You have to be mindful about what you put in your body,” said Rakiah Green, co-owner of Bryant of New York, a salon on Colfax Avenue that specializes in “multicultural” hair. “That goes for food, drink, hair, nails, everything.”
If the bill is successful, Colorado would be among the first states to regulate hair products.
Last year, New York and Arkansas passed bills similar to the one Colorado lawmakers are proposing, requiring manufacturers to place warning labels on hair products that contain carcinogens or reproductive toxicants. California went one step further with the C.U.R.L. Act, also passed last year, which bans any hair relaxers that contain one of nine listed chemicals, beginning in 2030.
At the federal level, the “Safer Beauty Bill Package” was introduced in Congress in July. The four bills are aimed at the cosmetics industry, including one bill to fund research on the adverse health effects experienced by girls and women of color from exposure to unsafe chemicals in the beauty products marketed to them. The beauty bills are stalled in the U.S. House.
The Colorado bill’s sponsors, Rep. Junie Joseph, a Boulder Democrat, and Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs Democrat, repeatedly emphasized two things the bill will not do: It will not ban products, and it will not create new chemical classifications.
Their hope is that requiring products to come with a warning label — similar to the ones on cigarettes — will, at the very least, help consumers make more informed decisions, and at most, drive innovation in the cosmetics industry.
A selection of hair products at Ultimate Beauty Haircare & Supplies in Thornton on March 10, 2026. House Bill 1135 will require a warning label on synthetic hair and straightening products that contain certain chemicals. “Warning labels create reputational pressure, retailers may prioritize safer products because of it, and investors increasingly track ESG and product-safety,” Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs democrat sponsoring the bill, said at the House committee on business affairs and labor. “Transparency in this particular industry often drives self-regulation faster than litigation alone.” (Parker Yamasaki, The Colorado Sun)“Benzene, methylene chloride, styrene and naphthalene,” English said during a Feb. 26 committee session, rattling off toxic chemicals found in hair products. “Additionally, certain hair products have been found to contain endocrine disrupting chemicals, such as … mmm, whatever that word is,” she said. “Listen, I am not a scientist, but all these words sound bad, bad, bad.”
Rep. Max Brooks, a Castle Rock Republican, was skeptical the effort would result in change.
During the same committee meeting, Brooks told the bill’s sponsors that he went and grabbed “some prepackaged stuff” to snack on during the session, and didn’t pay any attention to what was on the label.
“I just ate it because I was hungry,” Brooks said. “So are people going to pay attention? Are we doing something that makes us feel good? Is there actually going to be any result? Are people actually going to be looking at labels? Does anyone look at what’s in Skittles?”
“The reason why you eat an item without looking at the package is that you trust that it is safe,” Joseph said.
The measure passed 42-20 in the House last week, and has been assigned to the Senate committee on Business, Labor and Technology.
Brooks voted against the measure, saying he wasn’t comfortable with the potential cost of labels being passed on to consumers, as well as what he called a more “frivolous” concern. “This body has tried to put warning labels on everything from gas pumps to stoves to, just goodness gracious, everything.”.
11,000 women and counting
In 2022, a woman filed a lawsuit in Illinois against cosmetics companies including L’Oreal and Revlon, claiming the chemicals in their hair products were directly linked to her ovarian cancer diagnosis. Around the same time, a landmark, decade-long study was published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Known as the Sister Study, researchers for the first time linked the frequent use of hair straightening products to higher rates of uterine cancer. The Sister Study followed nearly 34,000 women for 10 years, and found that those who used chemical hair-straightening products frequently were two and a half times as likely to develop the cancer.
Previous studies had linked hair relaxers to a higher risk of uterine fibroids and breast cancer. While those studies had been trickling in for more than a decade, the 2022 Sister Study started a flood.
Spurred by the widely distributed study — and lots of recruiting from law firms all over the country — thousands of women filed lawsuits against more than a dozen cosmetics companies. In early 2023, those lawsuits were combined into a multidistrict lawsuit, or MDL, a process where individuals file separate lawsuits, but cases are handled together by one judge. As of March 3, the Illinois MDL includes more than 11,000 plaintiffs.
A display of wigs at A1 Beauty Supply in Denver on March 10, 2026. If successful, House Bill 1135 will require any synthetic hair pieces that contain known carcinogens to come with a warning label provided by the manufacturer. (Parker Yamasaki, The Colorado Sun)Heather “Bird” Gonzales, co-owner of A1 Beauty Supply in the north Denver neighborhood Elyria-Swansea, said she hasn’t heard much about chemicals in the hair products she sells. Her customers look for a specific effect — like synthetic hair that can be heat-treated, for example — but aren’t necessarily shopping in a way that avoids certain chemicals. The bill might catch people off guard, she said.
“Is it really that harmful compared to the liquor store that I’m set up next to that sells cigarettes and liquor every day? We know it’s not the best for us, but do we want it?” Gonzales said. “It’s going to be based on the consumer, and what they feel is harmful to themselves, not necessarily what a health professional says.” But warning labels would inevitably change some consumer behavior, she added.
While the Food and Drug Administration regulates ingredient lists and product weight, it has no control over marketing terms that appear on the box. Hair relaxers, widely available at drugstores and beauty supply shops, often use words like “gentle” or “natural” without having to prove their product is either of those things, and market to children with brightly colored boxes featuring young girls with straight, shiny hair.
A 2018 study found 45 endocrine-disrupting or asthma-associated chemicals in hair products used by Black women that were not listed on the product label, including five chemicals found in children’s products that are prohibited in the European Union and regulated by California’s Proposition 65, which was passed in 1986. The study’s authors recommended personal care manufacturers reduce chemical usage and “improve labeling so women can select products consistent with their values.”
What doesn’t cause cancer anymore?
One common salon chemical is formaldehyde, found in smoothing and straightening serums, a known toxin when inhaled that the FDA proposed banning from hair products in 2023. Both the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, recognize formaldehyde as a human carcinogen.
Despite the proposal, no action was taken, and the FDA blew past the October 2023 deadline to act on the rule. The subsequent April 2024 deadline came and went, as well as a later 2024 deadline, and a March 2025 deadline, too. Still no action has been taken by the agency.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration revised its assessment of formaldehyde, doubling the acceptable threshold considered safe to inhale. Two EPA officials in charge of the new assessment have previously worked for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that for years has strongly pushed back on the EPA’s efforts to regulate formaldehyde, ProPublica reported in December.
Without an official ban or federal action, the U.S. government kicks responsibility for product safety back to manufacturers and, ultimately, down to consumers. The FDA’s top recommendation for avoiding formaldehyde and similar ingredients in hair products is: “Read the label.”
It will always depend on the consumer, Gonzales, of A1 Beauty Supply, said. “Can you drive some people away with the label? Yes. But then you have the ones that are like, ‘I’m only going to wear it tonight, I’m fine.’ And you have ones that will say beauty comes with a cost, you know?”
Green, from Bryant of New York salon, said she’s been aware of the dangers of chemical treatment for years. “What doesn’t cause cancer anymore?”
A warning label wouldn’t change which products she chooses, Green said, because she already looks at labels. She picks brands for her salon that steer toward hair care, not simply styling.
“We need to be mindful, that’s the most important thing that I have learned over the years,” Green said. “I don’t care if you’re black, white, green or yellow, you need someone who will work with love for your hair.”
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