For decades, chemical relaxers—creams applied to tightly curled and coiled hair to permanently straighten its texture—were a fixture of Black hair care. Then came the natural hair movement. By the 2010s, growing numbers of Black women were abandoning relaxers, embracing their natural texture and leaving behind the familiar ritual of chemical straightening—including the burning scalp they were often encouraged to endure for “just five minutes longer.” Some did the “big chop,” cutting off chemically processed hair and starting the hair-growth journey from scratch. Others, like me, said goodbye to the “creamy crack” largely out of teenage laziness. Either way, for a while it seemed as though the relaxer’s reign was over. Sales plummeted; at the height of the modern natural hair movement—around 2011 to 2016—relaxer sales had fallen by 60%, leading Forbes to report in 2022 that cream texturizers were approaching the “brink of extinction.” Chemically straightened Afro hairstyles had gone from being the default to increasingly unfashionable. And yet, something curious is happening. The relaxer is creeping back.
London-based celebrity hairstylist Zateesha Barbour has noticed it among her clients and says the reasons are often remarkably straightforward. “My clients who ask for relaxers say they don’t care [about the health risks],” she says. “Most people are like, ‘I just want my hair straight. Why does [the decision] have to be so difficult? Why do I have to think about things that other people don’t have to think about?’”
Why are so many Black women returning to hair relaxers?
Renowned hairstylist Charlotte Mensah, who recently celebrated 40 years in the hair industry, has observed a similar shift, much of which she puts down to natural-hair fatigue. “What I’m seeing is that some people are simply exhausted by the amount of time, products, and manipulation they’ve come to associate with maintaining natural hair,” she says. “Deep conditioning, layering multiple products, long wash days, and daily styling can become overwhelming.” But, she counters, “natural hair itself isn’t the problem. Often it’s the routine that has become too complicated. Hair care shouldn’t feel like a burden.”
The timing is striking: The uptick in the use of relaxers appears to be resurfacing just as scrutiny around the potential health risks of chemical straighteners has intensified. Arizona recently filed a lawsuit against L’Oréal alleging that the company failed to adequately warn consumers about health risks associated with some chemical hair relaxers, including alleged links to uterine cancer, fibroids, and other reproductive-health problems. In the UK, a major landmark report titled “Afro Hair: Is State Intervention Needed?,” published by World Afro Day last month in partnership with research consultancy Shift Insight, examined health and social inequalities associated with Afro-textured hair. Among its findings, 84% of respondents agreed that finding hair products with ingredients they could trust was vital, while a third of respondents with Afro-textured hair said hair products had damaged their physical health.
Yet despite these lawsuits and health warnings, chemical-relaxer kits remain widely available in beauty shops and online. Leading dermatologist and hair-loss specialist Sharon Belmo, MD, notes that this is largely due to the regulatory context governing these products. “Relaxers sold in the UK are regulated as cosmetics,” she says. “They must undergo product safety assessments, meet ingredient limits and labeling requirements, etc., and serious side effects must be reported like other cosmetics.” However, as Belmo points out, “This does not prevent burns or other side effects from improper use.” She also dispels common misconceptions around alternative formulations: “Lye-free relaxers, such as guanidine hydroxide, lithium hydroxide, or ammonium thioglycolate, are often felt to be gentler and may sting less, but like lye (sodium hydroxide) relaxers, they are still highly alkaline and can burn the scalp and weaken the hair. I do not believe, nor do we have the evidence to prove, that they are inherently safer for the scalp.”
