Majority of beauty products marketed to black women are high in potentially harmful chemical ingredients compared to products sold to general public, reports a recent study.
Beauty Products Use Among African-Americans
A report from Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyzed over 1,000 beauty products and noted that only few less-harmful products are available in the market for African-American women who spend more on cosmetics in the country.
It is reported that 13 percent of black women in the United States spend up to 22 percent of the $42 billion worth of beauty products sold in the country each year. It is therefore obvious that black women make use of a number of products that could be harmful to their health than other women in the country.
EWG's Skin Deep's Beauty Product Analysis
About 12 out of 1,117 beauty care products aimed at black women were found to be highly dangerous on the EWG scoring system that rates products from one to 10 with lowest hazard and highest hazard risks respectively.
EWG's Skin Deep® Cosmetics Database is a free online platform to check for the quality of personal and beauty care products. Skin Deep has information on 64,480 products sold in the country in its database.
"WE ACT for Environmental Justice" reacted on the issue that there is no disparity in color when it comes to beauty. Women from all the races, ethnicities and cultures agree to the fact that looking beautiful is "universal" for women, noted the group, according to EWG report.
Health Hazards Caused By Beauty Products
According to EWG's analysis only about 25 percent of beauty products manufactured and sold to black women scored low in the scale opposed to 40 percent of the products sold to general public. Potential health hazards caused by the cosmetics include hormone disruption, allergies, cancer and developmental and reproductive damage.
Hair colors, hair relaxers and bleaching products scored very low on the hazard scal, which indicates high potential hazard. Furthermore, none of the items in the categories including hair colors, hair relaxers, lipsticks, bleaching products, concealers, sun-block make-up products and foundation fell under low hazard group.
Nearly 15 hair relaxers and dyes were reported to have scored 8.1 in the Skin Deep scale, marking highly hazardous among other products. Though these products are claimed safe for use they should be clearly avoided, noted the report.
"This report will help push the companies that make these products marketed to black women," said Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research at the Environmental Working Group, reported WWLP. "We want to empower all demographics."
