Ayesha Malik’s hair was as soon as so lush – shiny, with ringlets worthy of a Disney film – that she needed to show on YouTube that she didn’t put on a wig or use a curling iron. On the time, Malik was a devotee of DevaCurl, a line of merchandise designed particularly for curly hair, one thing she had discovered laborious to return by in her residence city of Anchorage, Alaska. Malik first promoted DevaCurl as a fan – she credited the corporate with remodeling her relationship to her hair – after which as an influencer. However by January 2019, almost six years into use of DevaCurl merchandise, one thing was off. Her hair appeared brittle and fried. The ringlets straightened out. Her scalp itched terribly, and she or he began dropping handfuls of hair within the bathe. She developed constant tinnitus and nervousness, struggled with reminiscence loss and delayed speech, and withdrew from her work on social media.
Although she had obtained a number of involved DMs from followers experiencing comparable hair harm, it wasn’t till she joined a Fb group later that summer season that she admitted the perpetrator might be her beloved hair merchandise. The group, Hair Damage & Hair Loss from DevaCurl – You’re not CRAZY or ALONE, began by Orlando-based hair stylist Stephanie Mero, had 3,000 members on the time who all skilled comparable harm they attributed to DevaCurl. (The group now has near 60,000 members.) Malik learn the posts and cried in recognition and horror, although “it nonetheless took me a number of months to course of, as a result of I used to be nonetheless in denial”, she informed the Guardian. She felt as if she’d been in a long-term relationship with the model. “The betrayal is simply so laborious to fathom,” she mentioned. “Why would you hurt me? You’re purported to be the exact opposite of that.”
Malik’s expertise with DevaCurl is one cautionary story in Not So Fairly, a brand new HBO Max documentary collection from investigative film-makers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, recognized for sexual assault docs On the Record and Allen v Farrow, on toxic chemicals in the beauty industry and the lax regulation, lack of oversight and company lobbying which permits for routine US shopper publicity to harmful substances. The collection, narrated by the actor Keke Palmer, consists of 4 succinct but sprawling half-hour episodes on totally different points of the multibillion-dollar magnificence business.
The hair episode contains Malik, Mero and others with hair harm they imagine is related to DevaCurl, in addition to a survey of the Eurocentric magnificence requirements and discrimination that has fueled advertising of dangerous hair relaxers to black ladies for many years. Nails explores the serious health risks faced by salon employees, who’re predominantly immigrants and people of color. Skincare investigates merchandise and plastic packaging with PFAS compounds, AKA “forever chemicals”, linked to most cancers, beginning defects, liver illness, thyroid illness, decreased immunity, hormone disruption and different well being issues. Make-up covers comparable issues in cosmetics, with a particular concentrate on proof that Johnson & Johnson knew its talc-based baby powder contained asbestos way back to the mid-Seventies (the corporate, going through thousands of lawsuits, withdrew the product in North America in 2020).
There’s a typical theme throughout all 4: the non-public care merchandise we devour, typically with out thought and underneath the idea that there’s some regulatory friction earlier than one thing is on retailer cabinets, should not almost as protected as you assume they’re. (This goes for extra than simply cosmetics — the Guardian’s collection Toxic America has discovered harmful chemicals in all the pieces from food to children’s toys to pizza boxes to tap water.) “So lots of the issues we placed on our our bodies, we don’t even assume to ask about, and even assume it’s our place to query,” Ziering mentioned. “It’s simply so a part of our tradition, simply to purchase stuff.”
Private care merchandise – every day shampoo and conditioners, nail polish, moisturizers, perfumes, and so forth – have particularly lax regulation in the US. Whereas the EU has banned or restricted greater than 1,300 chemical substances in cosmetics alone, the US has outlawed just 11 toxic ingredients. There are at the moment no authorized necessities for beauty producers to check their merchandise earlier than promoting them to customers. If customers are harmed, there’s little the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA), the regulatory physique supposedly defending customers, can do; the enfeebled company can merely request an organization challenge a voluntary recall.
“Just about each different chemical in each different business has some form of oversight, and in cosmetics, there’s nearly none,” Dick mentioned. “We have been shocked to see that one thing that was so widespread, so ubiquitous, that everyone makes use of, there was nearly no regulation. And what meaning is that customers should remember.”
It’s alleged that Malik’s hair and well being have been broken by substances in DevaCurl merchandise which launched formaldehyde, a recognized human carcinogen banned in EU-sold cosmetics however nonetheless present in hair relaxers and nail polish. (The corporate has maintained that their merchandise are protected and that hair loss and different harm will be attributed to different components. In line with an announcement given to the film-makers: “now we have not seen a single medical file, laboratory check, or analysis from a physician or scientific skilled to help the claims made on this TV program.”) The film-makers discovered that the FDA obtained greater than 1,500 reviews of harm by DevaCurl, from hair loss to migraines to ulcers, however the company couldn’t challenge a recall. The corporate has since reformulated their merchandise.
Although the FDA requires cosmetics to have an “ingredient declaration”, poisonous chemical substances can nonetheless lurk in generally used merchandise. Perfume formulations, for instance, are thought-about a “commerce secret” and thus protected against disclosure to regulators or producers, which means that the 4,000 chemicals at the moment used to scent merchandise within the US – a few of which trigger irritation, endocrine disruption, or are linked to most cancers – never make it to the label. A 2019 examine by industrial chemist Ladan Khandel on gel nail polish, performed when she was a grasp’s scholar in environmental well being at College of California, Berkeley, discovered harmful substances not disclosed on the security knowledge sheets required by California regulation.
Such chemical substances included formaldehyde, benzene, toluene and methyl methacrylate, “that are all fairly poisonous and would positively should be disclosed in the event that they have been within the unique formulation of the product”, mentioned Khandel, who seems within the second episode and runs a Instagram account devoted to the toxicology of beauty. “Individuals actually need to know what they’re being uncovered to, and the security knowledge sheets want to indicate it,” she added. “It must be on the producers to show their merchandise are protected earlier than it goes to market.”
Ziering, too, places the onus on firms to make sure their merchandise are protected, one thing not discovered within the closing two episodes, which discover many years of allegations towards Johnson & Johnson, Exxon Mobil-produced chemicals in beauty products and packaging, and lobbying efforts to weaken shopper safety. “We’re a nation of multinational companies that parades as a democracy,” mentioned Ziering. “We’re affected by the shortage of moral management on the head of those companies, and the shortage of an ideology that implores that they’ve moral imperatives.”
“It isn’t in [companies’] pursuits, most often, to dive in and repair the issue,” Dick added. “Often the answer is to disregard it and hope it goes away.”
That seemed to be DevaCurl’s technique, however the harm has not gone away for Malik. Although her hair well being has improved, she nonetheless struggles with tinnitus, nervousness and scalp irritation. The harm led her to “fully detox my life as a result of I don’t belief any American model it doesn’t matter what it’s”, she mentioned.
Not So Fairly ends every episode with a didactic part alongside these traces: the dos and don’ts of every sector, from apps which analysis substances in your family merchandise to an endorsement of the Safer Beauty Bill package, a collection of proposed legal guidelines to ban sure chemical substances in cosmetics, together with PFAS, phthalates and formaldehyde, and require extra ingredient transparency.
However for now, the onus stays totally on the patron. “You could have energy as a shopper,” mentioned Ziering. “We aren’t powerless, and the place you set your cash is the place firms will observe your lead. They should. So buy correctly, and buy thoughtfully.”