Is artificial braiding hair giving folks most cancers? Breaking down Shopper Experiences’ checks

April 3, 2025

How one can cite:
Wong M. Is artificial braiding hair giving folks most cancers? Breaking down Shopper Experiences’ checks. Lab Muffin Magnificence Science. March 27, 2025. Accessed April 2, 2025.
https://labmuffin.com/is-synthetic-braiding-hair-giving-people-cancer-breaking-down-consumer-reports-tests/

Is artificial braiding hair giving folks most cancers? In February 2025, Shopper Experiences introduced that that they had discovered carcinogens in all 10 merchandise of synthetic braiding hair they examined. They claimed this was placing the well being of wearers and braiders in danger. However is that this truly true, or is it fearmongering?

Right here’s the video model – maintain scrolling for the article.

Overblown outcomes are dangerous

First off, I feel this can be a actually necessary space of analysis. Historically in science, the additional away from white and male we get, the much less information we now have. So it’s nice that Shopper Experiences is testing merchandise lots of black ladies use.

But it surely’s additionally a much bigger drawback if the outcomes aren’t introduced in an sincere and clear method. Folks is likely to be inspired to take unhelpful actions, which makes the issue worse.

It’s like we didn’t know if we should always fear about bears or sharks. New analysis reveals there’s just one shark, and he’s truly sort of pathetic. But when the outcomes are overvalued, folks at the moment are spending all their power constructing shark-proof nets and writing petitions to rent extra lifeguards. Everybody’s forgotten in regards to the bears!

And for my part, that’s precisely what’s taking place with these Shopper Experiences outcomes.

Harmful chemical substances?

The headline:

Harmful Chemical substances Had been Detected in 100% of the Braiding Hair We Examined.

We despatched to the lab 10 of the preferred artificial braiding hair merchandise in the marketplace, from manufacturers together with Magic Fingers, Sassy Assortment, Sensationnel, Shake-N-Go, and others. Carcinogens have been detected in all of them.

If you happen to’ve watched my movies earlier than, you’ll know there’s one essential element ignored: how a lot of those chemical substances have been there?

In toxicology, there’s a saying: “the dose makes the poison”. If in case you have sufficient of something, it may be dangerous to your well being.

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The flip facet: you probably have a sufficiently small quantity of something, it gained’t be very dangerous. For instance, all of us have about 90 micrograms of radioactive uranium inside our our bodies, however that is tremendous as a result of it’s such a low quantity – the possibility of it interacting with sufficient issues inside our our bodies to have an impact is minimal.

Prime findings

Shopper Experiences offers these as their high findings:

Carcinogens, or chemical substances which will trigger most cancers, have been detected in one hundred pc of the samples.
Lead was detected in 9 of 10 merchandise.
Different VOCs, together with acetone, have been detected in all merchandise.

Now we have numbers, however these aren’t helpful.

Merely detecting substances doesn’t imply a lot. Chemists are getting higher and higher at measuring issues, and atoms are ridiculously tiny. There’s most likely extra atoms in a pack of braiding hair than there are grains of sand on earth.

Within the tenth pattern, I’d wager that no less than just a few of these atoms are lead – we simply don’t have the know-how to detect it but, and the quantity is so low it’s not regarding. So these “high findings” are very unhelpful, and to me it’s bizarre that Shopper Experiences picked these as their “high findings”.

Carcinogens

The primary class of drugs are carcinogens (cancer-causing substances)

All 10 merchandise had a couple of carcinogen. The article tells us benzene is “a recognized carcinogen that causes acute myeloid leukemia,” and “is strictly regulated and discouraged to make use of in laboratories due to its potential to trigger most cancers”. In addition they say “two merchandise contained an animal carcinogen, and all of the samples contained a possible carcinogen, methylene chloride”.

Beneath this can be a chart itemizing the carcinogens in every product, divided into recognized, possible and doable. These IARC classes merely inform us in regards to the certainty of proof, not how regarding they need to be (I’ve mentioned these within the context of benzene earlier than).

Associated put up: Benzene in your merchandise, Half 1: Dangerous science

We have to click on into the “full take a look at outcomes” to see the quantities – which is the place the juicy stuff is.

Benzene

There are two benzene measurements for every pattern. Benzene was detected 4 occasions out of 20, 15-18 micrograms per kilogram (μg/kg).

For an extended hair fashion, it looks like you would possibly use possibly a pound (round 0.5 kilograms) of hair. In line with these outcomes, this is able to comprise lower than 9 micrograms of benzene.

Is that this scary?

I’ve talked about benzene earlier than – it’s an air pollutant that all of us breathe in day-after-day. It comes from many sources, together with petrol, so it’s fairly unavoidable. However not everybody will get leukemia regardless of respiratory all of it day day-after-day (and respiratory it’s usually the primary concern – it doesn’t undergo pores and skin simply). So it isn’t actually a priority except you get lots of publicity (once more, dose is crucial), for instance when you’re a mechanic, or when you work at a petroleum station.

Let’s put the quantity in artificial hair into context:

If you happen to dwell in a metropolis, you inhale round 60 micrograms a day. That is 6 occasions the utmost quantity in 0.5 kg of hair.
You’re not inhaling the entire hair (except issues are actually not going effectively for you), so a lot of the benzene could be drifting off into the air.
Braided hairstyles usually final weeks or months. If we go together with 4 weeks (28 days), that works out to be a mean of 0.32 μg a day.

Associated put up: Benzene in your merchandise, Half 1: Dangerous science

Some extraordinarily hi-tech scale drawings:

Bar 1 (darkish blue): 60 μg = benzene you breathe in day-after-day.
Bar 2 (purple): 9 μg = benzene in half a kilo (1 pound) of hair, which you don’t fully breathe in (hopefully)
Bar 3 (pink): 0.32 μg = the additional benzene you would possibly inhale every day from the hair, on common over 4 weeks (each day benzene is 187 occasions greater)
Bar 4 (mild blue): 100 μg = benzene produced whereas cooking on a gasoline range
Bar 5 (inexperienced): 110 μg = benzene inhaled on common whereas filling your automotive up for five minutes

The final two are 300 and 340 occasions greater than the quantity in 0.5 kg of artificial hair.

And these greater numbers are on a regular basis quantities of benzene that don’t trigger leukemia, the overwhelming majority of the time. So do we actually want this a lot hype about scary benzene and leukemia? Shopper Experiences have been round for a very long time, so I might suppose they’d know what framing will get traction, and that is certainly what you see within the information headlines and on social media.

Benzene publicity for braiders?

Once I posted about this on Instagram, some folks requested if braiders cleansing hair in scorching water is likely to be a priority – right here’s one other threat estimate.

A couple of braiders (together with former braider’s apprentice Dr Siobhan Oma) kindly gave me estimates for hair utilization and purchasers per day:

Packs of hair weigh round 60 g (16 inches) to 100 g (26/30 inches), a “jumbo pack” weighs 165 g
2 to six packs of hair are used per head
Variety of purchasers per day is determined by talent and elegance, in addition to whether or not braiders crew up – possibly 3-5 purchasers per day
5 packs on every of 5 heads will likely be 2500 g or 5.5 kilos

To be secure, let’s say a braider boils 10 kilos of the worst hair for 10 minutes – this releases 81 μg benzene.

If somebody was trapped with this quantity in a wonderfully sealed small lavatory (8 x 8 x 8 ft) each day for 78 years, the elevated likelihood of most cancers will likely be roughly 3 in 100,000 (extrapolating from the EPA’s inhalation threat for five.6 μg/m³).

It’s actually tough to seal an area this effectively (I’ve been in lots of areas with an Aranet4 – air flow monitoring is sort of a pastime of mine). And when you’re boiling water, a sealed room could be tremendous humid. Anybody on this scenario would suppose to open a window or activate the fan.

And there are different hazardous chemical substances that may construct up a lot sooner underneath these situations. The deal with benzene distracts from investigating these, and distracts from pushing for security measures apart from testing hair for benzene.

I might be fully behind a petition to extend air flow schooling – it reduces the danger for just about any detrimental substances within the air (together with pathogens). Once more, the issue is that Shopper Experiences directs all focus to the not-very-scary shark.

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Methylene chloride

The opposite carcinogen they title is methylene chloride, often known as dichloromethane. This solvent is utilized in paint stripper, and it’s a standard lab solvent (I used a ton throughout my analysis, with security precautions). It’s not good for you in excessive quantities – there are some “burst” gel polish removers you should purchase on-line that comprise dichloromethane, and I’d suggest towards utilizing these.

However the quantities in artificial hair?

Shopper Experiences discovered that of their samples, it’s largely underneath 20 μg/kg, with an unusually excessive measurement at 54 μg/kg (the opposite measurement for that product was 19 μg/kg, which is a large distinction – this raises the query of reliability, and in an everyday scientific examine you’d need to return and remeasure).

We’ll use 54 μg/kg – that provides us 27 μg of methylene chloride in half a kilo of hair. That is about 1/2500th of 1 drop (1 drop = 0.05 mL, density = 1.33 g/mL).

For comparability, the Australian secure work pointers enable 1.74 million μg a day to be inhaled (174 mg/m³, primarily based on 10 m³ inhaled air a day). I’m not saying we should always all go inhale this a lot day-after-day for enjoyable, however we want perspective right here – over 60,000 occasions as a lot as the whole quantity within the worst artificial hair continues to be thought-about comparatively okay each day publicity.

The Australian ingesting water pointers enable 0.004 mg of methylene chloride per litre of water. Because of this if a million folks drank 8 μg of methylene chloride day-after-day for 70 years, lower than one individual could be anticipated to get most cancers from it. If we divide the quantity in half a kilo of the worst artificial hair by 28 days, that’s 0.96 μg – 8 occasions much less. Once more, the hair isn’t all ingested, so that is effectively underneath a one-in-a-million elevated likelihood of most cancers – not that regarding.

Once more, Shopper Experiences’ checks present that the shark is fairly pathetic when you crunch the numbers – however that’s very totally different from how they introduced it.

Heavy metals

Subsequent is heavy metals, and Shopper Experiences do discuss dose this time:

Not one of the merchandise had detectable arsenic. “Three of the merchandise had detectable cadmium, however our publicity and threat evaluation discovered the degrees didn’t pose a threat,” Rogers says.

Lead, nonetheless, was detected in 9 of the ten merchandise. “Our publicity and threat evaluation discovered all 9 merchandise might expose an everyday consumer of any of those merchandise to a stage of lead that could possibly be regarding over time,” he provides.

Is that this truly true?

Lead is dangerous, and so they discuss among the points (mind and nervous system harm, immune system suppression, reproductive points, kidney harm, hypertension, developmental issues in youngsters). I’m no fan of lead – it’s one of many causes I don’t develop my very own greens. I presently dwell within the Internal West of Sydney, the place there’s been fairly excessive leads ranges reported (you would possibly need to look that up in your space).

However the quantities in artificial hair – this time, Shopper Experiences present the quantities in the primary a part of the article, in a desk. Right here’s the highest and backside rows:

The lead stage is proven as a proportion of the Most Allowable Dose Stage (MADL). One product had no lead detected (once more, it nonetheless most likely has lead), whereas the remainder had between 123 and 610% of the MADL (1.2 to six.1 occasions the MADL).

What’s the MADL? Shopper Experiences say it’s “the extent deemed secure by specialists”, however they are saying there’s no official restrict for lead in braiding hair, so their scientists picked California’s meals restrict as the purpose of comparability, as a result of it’s the “most protecting” within the US at 0.5 μg of lead a day.

They thought-about taking a look at inhalation, pores and skin contact or consuming, and so they selected consuming. Their logic is that braiders can by accident eat hair that’s damaged off, and babies would possibly chew on their hair, which is honest sufficient.

However how a lot are Shopper Experiences assuming you’d eat to achieve these quantities of lead?

They don’t explicitly say this, so I messed round with the numbers within the desk. It seems to be like they averaged the 2 numbers for every pattern, labored out how a lot you’d get when you eat 25 grams of hair, and in contrast it to the MADL.

I didn’t have artificial hair available, however that is 25 grams of acrylic yarn – barely bigger than a tennis ball:

MADL describes what’s fit for human consumption day-after-day, long run – I actually don’t suppose that is reasonable, even for youths chewing their very own hair.

If 25 grams is eaten day-after-day, a full head of braids (0.5 kg) could be fully gone in 20 days. If that is taking place, I don’t suppose the lead ought to be your primary concern.

California’s MADL is the bottom within the US:

Australian ingesting water pointers enable 10 μg of lead a day (primarily based on a 2 12 months previous ingesting 1 L/day), 20 occasions greater than the MADL. You’d must eat 80 grams (3 balls) of probably the most leaded hair every day to achieve this stage.
The US FDA’s stage for youngsters is 2.2 μg – you’d must eat the massive half a ball of probably the most leaded hair a day to achieve this stage (I do know everybody thinks US stuff is harmful however lots of the time they really have decrease limits).

Let’s examine this to soil, which younger children are more likely to swallow (e.g. I used to be on the financial institution just a few weeks again and a toddler was consuming the carpet).

The lead in soil within the Internal West may be tens of hundreds of occasions greater than the worst artificial hair (960 mg/kg). Consuming 2 milligrams of this soil will attain the FDA allowable restrict.

If the dust was assembly the secure Australian guideline of 300 mg/kg, you’d want about 7 milligrams of dust.

A TicTac is about 500 milligrams. To not make you paranoid about soil (these FDA ranges do have large security buffers in-built), however a tenth of a TicTac’s price of soil has comparable lead content material to half a tennis ball of the worst artificial hair. Is artificial hair actually the harmful supply of lead we ought to be specializing in?

Unstable natural compounds

Then we now have unstable natural compounds (VOCs) – these are “whiffy” liquids you would possibly inhale like solvents, petrol, and alcohol. Extra of those evaporate with warmth, and artificial hair is usually heated throughout washing, or through the braiding session.

Shopper Experiences’ chart reveals the “complete variety of VOCs measured” – I feel they meant the whole mass of VOCs. This was measured after sealing the hair in a flask and boiling it in water for 10 minutes.

There are some large variations from actual life:

Braids are normally dipped for much lower than 10 minutes (normally possibly 10 or 15 seconds)
VOCs are gases, so air flow makes a large distinction – sealing the tube means you possibly can correctly measure the total quantity, however that’s much less related to actual life

I don’t suppose including the VOCs collectively is beneficial. The report says: “The upper the whole variety of VOCs in a product, the upper the probability of a damaging impression on the well being of the consumer”.

I fully disagree with this, as a result of totally different VOCs have totally different results. For instance, ingesting one shot of ethanol (ingesting alcohol) is way safer than one shot of methanol (wooden alcohol) – it’s the identical with inhaling totally different VOCs.

The primary VOC they measured in each pattern was acetone. 5 samples had at 390,000-5,900,000 μg/kg and 4 samples had 120-290 μg/kg. The opposite VOCs have been underneath 830 μg/kg (the overwhelming majority have been underneath 100 μg/kg).

However acetone is a really secure substance. Whereas it may be a respiratory irritant if massive quantities are inhaled, we exhale it once we burn fats for power. It’s generally used as nail polish remover.

0.5 kg of the “worst” hair produces 2.625 g acetone when boiled for 10 minutes. If that is all evaporated and inhaled directly, it wouldn’t be very nice – however you’d discover the scent earlier than it will have severe well being results, and also you’d do it someplace extra ventilated (it will even be dripping moist from the steam). If all of this evaporated right into a sealed field the dimensions of a giant fridge, and also you have been inside respiratory it for 8 hours, you’d hit Australia’s secure work guideline, and the primary challenge is simply irritation.

So this enormous contribution from acetone implies that Shopper Experiences’ chart truly distorts the relative dangers from totally different merchandise. The “worst” merchandise (6 million) look much more harmful than the “finest” (300).

That is what the chart seems to be like if we subtract acetone:

I’ve by no means heard of any of those manufacturers earlier than, so I’m not making an attempt to make particular manufacturers look higher – however the numbers are much more comparable:

Hbegant and Darling are across the identical now, despite the fact that with the acetone Darling seems to be hundreds of occasions worse
The worst product now could be Shake-N-Go FreeTress, which was within the high half earlier than – it has about 3 occasions extra mixed VOCs as the subsequent highest product

Be aware that these numbers are nonetheless deceptive, because the different VOCs are nonetheless all conflated, however it makes a bit extra sense – I might say styrene is greater threat than acetone. However these VOC ranges are very low – to achieve the secure work restrict, the very best stage of styrene in 0.5 kg of artificial hair would all need to evaporate right into a 833 mL field (round 3.5 cups), and also you’d must huff it for 8 hours.

Precise dangers?

On the very high of the Shopper Experiences article, it talks in regards to the background: a scholar known as Chrystal Thomas wrote a commentary paper about artificial hair after she had braids accomplished. Her throat felt irritated, and the artificial hair smelled very robust even after washing a number of occasions.

These results aren’t defined by the Shopper Experiences outcomes. Extraordinarily low quantities of benzene, methylene chloride, lead, styrene, and better (however nonetheless low) quantities of acetone wouldn’t have these results, particularly for a number of days and after a number of washings – the bear continues to be on the market.

A extra correct method of framing the findings, for my part: “Artificial hair is likely to be unsafe, however it’s not due to any of the carcinogens, heavy metals or VOCs Shopper Experiences examined for.”

It’s actually not as thrilling although, is it?

Some extra possible culprits are advised on the backside of the article:

Rashes and swelling: This might come from irritants or allergens. Some folks have raised the problems of irritating coatings on artificial hair, which is why it’s usually washed with scorching water or cleansing options earlier than use. By way of allergens, my guess could be maybe acrylates – allergic reactions to those are rising with dwelling gel kits.
Tight braids is a giant challenge – in addition to ache, they’ll trigger hair loss (traction alopecia).
Different probably poisonous components: Artificial hair doesn’t really matter as a beauty product, so there’s quite a bit much less ingredient checklist transparency.

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Once more, I feel it’s implausible that Shopper Experiences are researching braiding hair. However their presentation of the findings shifts focus to the flawed dangers.

Some information article round this report acknowledged that “black ladies deserve higher”, and I agree. However they don’t simply deserve higher merchandise and extra analysis – in addition they deserve to not be misled by overvalued questionable findings.

Shopper Experiences’ petition to the FDA advocates for the FDA to “examine artificial braiding hair and set strict requirements for these merchandise by limiting harmful chemical substances—particularly recognized carcinogens, comparable to benzene—and heavy metals, together with lead.”

However their outcomes truly present that benzene and lead aren’t a priority!

In science, it’s disappointing when your speculation doesn’t pan out after time-consuming analysis. However damaging outcomes are helpful and priceless, and obligatory for progress.

Misrepresenting them is the other. It distracts from different dangers – persons are nonetheless having reactions to artificial hair. Shopper Experiences ought to actually petition the FDA to have a look at different substances, or petition representatives to extend FDA funding (deregulation of US public well being establishments is presently taking place at an alarming charge).

Somewhat rant about Shopper Experiences

I wasn’t that accustomed to Shopper Experiences earlier than, apart from their annual sunscreen testing outcomes that are actually attention-grabbing (though these are additionally generally taken out of context).

They have an inclination to do extra reporting round meals, and it seems they’ve an extended historical past of actually exaggerating the dangers they discovered there, much like what they did with this artificial hair story. (This text on heavy metals in chocolate by the superb Meals Science Babe is the place I discovered in regards to the FDA lead pointers.)

In the previous few years, Shopper Experiences have printed extra tales on private care merchandise, and it seems like they’re happening the fearmongering pipeline.

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In December 2023 they posted about child wipes at the side of an organization known as Made Protected, which appears to be a fair crappier model of the EWG. Their science advisors embrace:

That is an especially wild assortment for a science advisory board, and it’s no shock that every one of Shopper Experiences’ collaborations with Made Protected are additionally stuffed with dangerous recommendation.

Fearmongering is dangerous

Since publishing the video model, I’ve seen lots of feedback about how folks at the moment are fully reassured in regards to the security of artificial hair – regardless of me making aware efforts all through the video to focus on unanswered questions on their dangers, that also want investigating (whether or not there are “bears”).

I’ve seen comparable conditions play out with different sensationalised headlines. For my part, it is because folks have been so intensely centered about particular dangers that once they hear these are overblown, it’s all they’ll take into consideration – the remainder of the message is misplaced. It’s yet one more method that sensationalised framing works towards the shared objective of bettering security and well being outcomes.