Hazardous Ingredients in Beauty Products Marketed to Black Women

In this Article (Index)

• Hazardous Personal Care Products
• The Risks for Black Women
• Social and cultural causes
• How to Avoid Hazardous Cosmetics

Hazardous Personal Care Products

A report published on February 11, 2025, by the non-profit organization Environmental Working Group (1) follows up on a previous study conducted in 2016 where it investigated the hazards in personal care products marketed to Black women.

This survey analyzed over 4,000 products and found that roughly 5% of the products "ranked highly hazardous" using their hazard score system.

The study highlights are the following:

• Fewer products marketed to Black women scored as "low hazard" compared to products without demographic marketing.
• The use of hazardous ingredients dropped since 2016, especially the use of paraben. However, the use of undisclosed fragrance ingredients increased.
• Out of the 12 personal care categories that were evaluated, only 4 showed improvements, and 8 shifted "towards moderate or high hazard products."

Hazardous Categories

The categories that showed a notable increase in hazard scores were: body moisturizers, body oils, body wash, and eye shadow; with eye shadow showing the biggest shift as now low-hazard products are available.

Another problematic category is hair relaxers. More than 25% of the hair relaxer products "had at least one formaldehyde-releasing preservative, and 78 percent of the evaluated hair relaxers contained the caustic ingredients sodium hydroxide, calcium hydroxide, or both."

Makeup categories like blush, eye shadow, and lipgloss score worse for Black women than non-demographic marketing segments (meaning products aimed at Black women have more hazardous ingredients than those aimed at the general market).

Blush aimed at the Black woman market segment had a score of 4 (moderate hazard) while the general market segment had a score of 3.

Hair products like hair bleach, chair color, and hair loss treatments all scored worse in the Black woman segment.

Fragrances

The use of "undisclosed" fragrances has grown since the 2016 report, and it poses transparency issues. The term fragrance includes many ingredients with different hazard risks.
Even disclosed fragrances also pose health risks, for instance, Lilial (lily aldehyde) although banned in the European Union, is still used in the US it can cause skin sensitization and harm reproductive health. Triethanolamine is another disclosed fragrance ingredient that poses some health concerns.

The EU set limits for the use of fragrances, making it obligatory to indicate their presence on product labels when the concentration is higher than 0.01% in rinse-off products and 0.001% in leave-on products.

The Risks for Black Women

The report mentions another study (2) that found that phthalate concentration in the urine of pregnant Black and Hispanic women was higher than in white women.

Similar findings were reported in a 2020 analysis (3): "Compared to non-Hispanic White women, the highest disparities were observed for non-Hispanic Black, Mexican American, Other Hispanic, and Other Race/Multi-Racial women with higher levels of pesticides and their metabolites, including 2,5-dichlorophenol, o,p’-DDE, beta-hexachlorocyclohexane, and 2,4-dichlorophenol, along with personal care and consumer product compounds, including parabens and monoethyl phthalate... Exposure levels for methyl and propyl parabens, however, were the highest in non-Hispanic black compared to non-Hispanic white children with average differences exceeding 4-fold."

A 2023 study conducted in Boston (4) used these same hazard scores to investigate hair products sold in the area; it found that retail stores in "neighborhoods with a higher percentage of residents of color and lower (SES) socioeconomic status were found to be more likely to sell products with high hazard scores than stores in a higher SES and predominately non-Hispanic White neighborhood."

In one neighborhood there was a 2-fold higher chance of finding higher risk scored personal care products than in a predominantly White neighborhood.

Social and cultural causes

These situations are made worse by social disparities like lack of education. Both in the consumers, where ignorance leads to poor choices when buying products, and in the retailers, who procure these harmful products for sale.
Cultural preferences for personal care products also play a role, as members of color communities tend to choose products that contain harmful chemicals such as skin-lightening products, lotions with fragrances, and hair straighteners, which aren't favored in non-colored ones.

Educated consumers make better choices when buying products. A lower demand for these products would drive them out of the marketplace.

How to Avoid Hazardous Cosmetics

Know your personal care products, and check their ingredients. Validate their score at the Skin Deep (https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/) . Use it to select safe products.

If using a high-hazard cosmetic is inevitable, balance it with other safe and low-hazard ones. This will help reduce the negative effects.

Choose fragrance-free products.

Avoid products that are "waterproof" or "long-wearing"

Count the number of ingredients on the label, less is better. Simple ingredients in a short list are safer.

Products with certified qualities like "vegan", "cruelty-free", "locally sourced" or "certified organic" tend to be safer.

Reduce your exposure: use products less frequently, and avoid regular, prolonged use.

Finally, remember the "cocktail effect" which increases the hazard risks of the substances found in your cosmetics, as it can accumulate with other hazard sources in your environment and harm you.