The Reality of Hair Products

Background of Dalia's Diagnosis

To begin our interview, I asked Dalia when and how she discovered her breast cancer diagnosis and how she perceived her diagnosis. 

"I learned my diagnosis of breast cancer in October of 2021. It happened all of a sudden during one of my routine mammograms. They found a mass which they took for a biopsy and I later learned it was stage one breast cancer... I was very shocked by this diagnosis because there has been no history of breast cancer of family and I had genetic testing that showed I was not predisposed to developing breast cancer." 

Dalia's immediate shock surrounding her diagnosis is something that is common for many women that develop breast cancer, especially those that do not have any history of the disease in their family. 

Dalia's Experience with Hair Relaxers and Beauty Standards

As we continued the conversation, I asked Dalia to explain her past with hair relaxers and why she decided to use them. This included the pressures she felt to use the hair relaxers and how the community around her influenced her decision. 

"I have been using hair relaxers for over 20 years, since 1999. I felt pressured to use hair relaxers because it was the beauty standard. The first time I went to a salon in the US, the stylist convinced me to do a hair relaxer because it would make my hair look more healthy, prettier and easier to manage. It was not something I wanted to do on my own but after that day at the salon, I felt it was necessary for me to be beautiful within the beauty standards. I was completely unaware of the dangers of hair relaxers. I was blindly convinced that it was good for my hair and I did not know that it could be a cause of future breast cancer."

This lead to my question of how Dalia felt her perception of her hair and beauty changed when immigrating from East Africa (Sudan) to the US.

"Before moving to the US, I never had a bad perception of my hair because everyone had close to the same hair textures. In Sudan, we had traditions of natural haircare and maintaining our hair wasn't difficult. When I came to the US, almost all of the African Americans around me used hair relaxers because it was the beauty standard, so I conformed to this standard so that I could better blend in."

The immigrant perspective of beauty standards is such an important part on how individuals make cosmetic choices. For Dalia, she felt that the only way she could assimilate and present herself as belonging among the African American community as an African immigrant, was by relaxing her hair. While her original decision to relax her hair was not entirely her own, Dalia continued to relax her hair in an effort to feel greater belonging. 

The Relationship between Hair Relaxers and Breast Cancer

To conclude our discussion, Dalia and I discussed the ways that hair relaxers and her beauty products may have been connected to her diagnosis. I asked how she may have thought that hair relaxers influenced her breast cancer diagnosis. 

"After doing my own research, I believe there is a high chance that hair relaxers are connected to my diagnosis. Because I have no family history of cancer or genetic disposition to cancer, I thought there had to be an exposure in my environment. My consistent and prolonged use of hair relaxers every three months made me think that this may have been a cause of my diagnosis."

Seeing a patient with breast cancer feeling the need to discover how they developed this diagnosis is a perfect example of why this website exists. As we all explore our EDC exposures in our individual environments we can possibly avoid the negative consequences that come from prolonged exposure to these chemicals.