Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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I have my laptop and charger and phone so that I can get some work done.
A couple weeks ago, I packed up a tote bag and got ready for an all-day affair. Snacks, so I have some almonds. Gonna get coffee and a breakfast sandwich on the way so that I don't get hangry. The weather warmed up and it was time to get my hair braided. Also probably Tylenol because sometimes the braids are tight and I get a little headache. My go-to styles changed through the years.
Brandy-inspired box braids in elementary school. Alicia Keys-inspired cornrows in middle school. A little break when my mom finally let me chemically straighten my hair with a relaxer in high school. And then, in college, when I wanted to stop relaxing my hair, Senegalese twists. Today, I'm going with passion twists. What color do you want? Maybe like a brownish or a reddish.
or like a brown if there's that too. Eight hours, two sets of hands, and a lot of almonds later, I was ready for summer. Braids feel like a smart choice for me. The ends of my hair are tucked away safe and sound, no damage from heating tools, and none of the toxic chemicals from relaxing it, right? A new study raises concerns about some hair extensions and wigs.
A Houston researcher is a part of a team that tested dozens of hair care products and found that over 90% of them contained harmful chemicals. And now some of those effects include birth defects and even cancer.
I asked Zoe, one of my raiders, about the headlines. After all, she's hands-on with these products for hours on end. They always find something about our hair or our products to warn us and say it's bad. I mean, it hasn't killed anybody yet, so it's not that I know of.
I'm Jonquan Hill, and this week on Explain It to Me from Vox, we find out about the chemicals inside the cosmetics we put on our bodies. Things like lotion, makeup, mousse, and yes, even braiding hair. To start, I wanted to talk with a scientist behind that research.
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Chapter 2: What chemicals are found in hair extensions and wigs?
Mariah is also the author of the book They Poison the World, Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. And she traces how these ingredients got into the products we use every day.
There are a number of chemicals that are commonly used in cosmetics and personal care products that are known to be harmful. Formaldehyde, phthalates, parabens, and what are commonly known as forever chemicals. The technical term for them is PFAS. So these are substances that are commonly found in cosmetics. Why are those chemicals in there?
What do they do for the cosmetics?
So they're used for various reasons in cosmetics. So some of them are preservatives. Some of them make them go on your skin more smoothly. In the case of Forever Chemicals or PFAS, they're often used because they make cosmetics stay on longer. So that waterproof mascara, that... Foundation that stays on all day. Most of those products contain PFAS.
That is the reason that they stay on your skin so long. And even, for example, dental floss, glide dental floss, dental floss that goes through your teeth super smoothly, that's because it has these chemicals in it. Dental floss? Dental floss. Also tampons, period underwear, band-aids. Oh, my gosh.
It's not just like, hey, your makeup, hey, these things, you know, that some would say you don't necessarily need. But even the stuff that you do need, it's there. Oh, yeah. When did these synthetic chemicals first start appearing in our products?
Synthetic materials really had a boom after World War II. So prior to World War II, there were a handful of synthetic materials that were used in everyday life. But Germany was actually the leading producer of chemicals and synthetic materials worldwide. And so the allied countries, including the United States, had a blockade on Germany. They were not buying German products.
There's one purpose, one single objective. to choke the life out of German trade and industry.
And that led to a shortage of the synthetic materials that the U.S. needed for war. And so the U.S. government ended up spending huge sums developing synthetic materials.
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Chapter 3: How does the study on hair products impact Black women?
It's really almost... impossible. For contrast, the European Union has regulated 1,400 chemicals in cosmetics, but they proactively test the ingredients in cosmetics for safety.
For the first time in more than 80 years, consumers will finally know more about what's in the makeup and other personal care products they use.
So in 2022, there was a law passed to modernize cosmetic regulation. And that was really the first significant change to the way we regulate personal care products since the 1930s.
Among the long list of provisions, it includes things like documenting and reporting of serious adverse events, following good manufacturing practices for all facilities, listing products and ingredients used in every formula,
And it gives the FDA more power over things like recall, but it doesn't compel the FDA to review the safety of chemicals in cosmetics or restrict those that are harmful. So the FDA still has really, really limited authority. That law did require the FDA to study the effects of forever chemicals or PFAS in cosmetics, so how widely used they are and potential health effects.
But otherwise, the FDA has basically the same authority that it did a century ago.
And where do things stand now? What's the outlook for cosmetic regulation in 2026?
So in the absence of federal laws protecting the public from chemicals, states have stepped in and begun very aggressively in some case regulating chemicals and consumer goods and cosmetics. So, so far, 17 states have adopted more than 40 laws regulating restricting toxic chemicals in personal care products.
And that's happening largely in response to ordinary citizens who are concerned about toxic chemicals, because the survey data tells us that this is an issue that concerns everybody, regardless of their political backgrounds. Nobody wants their children being exposed to toxic chemicals in the home. Nobody wants their body lotion to be exposing them to toxic chemicals.
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