# Hair Relaxer *Chemical straighteners became a mass Black grooming practice through Black-targeted marketing, workplace pressure, and beauty norms that tied straight hair to respectability and employability; their history is broader than any one brand and now includes major health controversy.* > Black's Encyclopedia — the sourced record of Black American life. > Portal: The Culture · Status: In review · Revised: July 24, 2026 · Revisions: 1 > Canonical: https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/hair-relaxer ## Questions this record answers - What is the history of hair relaxers in Black life? - Who marketed chemical hair straighteners to Black women? - How did hair relaxers reshape grooming norms and workplace expectations? - What health risks have been linked to hair relaxer use? - Was Garrett Augustus Morgan the inventor of hair relaxers? ## Summary Hair relaxers are chemical straightening products that became a major part of Black hair care in the twentieth century, marketed especially to Black women and tied to changing standards of respectability, class, and workplace presentation. Their history is not the story of one brand alone; it is a broader record of commercial persuasion, beauty discipline, and later health alarm. ## The archive's standing Hair relaxer belongs in the record of Black modern life because it shaped how millions of people managed dignity, labor, and appearance under racial pressure. It was never only a beauty item: it was a tool of entry into schools, offices, and public life, and also a site where Black consumers negotiated status and self-making. The archive holds the subject as a commercial technology that altered grooming norms at scale, while now standing under serious medical scrutiny. ## Commercial history Chemical straighteners emerged within a wider Black beauty economy that linked grooming to mobility, professionalism, and social presentation. A recurring origin story places Garrett Augustus Morgan in the early twentieth century, but the larger historical record shows many formulations, brands, and marketing channels rather than a single invention narrative. Contemporary reporting and health coverage describe relaxers as heavily marketed to Black women and girls, often through messages that natural texture was less acceptable in work and public life. ## How the norm changed Relaxers reshaped grooming by making straightened hair a routine expectation in many Black households and by attaching straight hair to neatness, class advancement, and respectability. That norm did not arise naturally; it was built by advertising, salon culture, and the social pressure created by anti-Black beauty standards. The result was a durable grooming regime in which chemical straightening became ordinary for many consumers, not a niche practice. ## Labor and class The subject belongs to labor history as much as style history. Hair straightening affected whether people could plausibly enter or remain in jobs that enforced narrow ideas of professionalism, and it helped define what “presentable” Black appearance meant in wage labor settings. The archive treats this as a collective adaptation to racialized workplace norms, not a private preference detached from power. ## Health record The modern health record has made hair relaxer a subject of urgent public concern. A National Institutes of Health study reported that women who used chemical hair straighteners more than four times a year faced higher uterine-cancer risk, and later cohort research in Black women also found elevated risk with long-term use. Reporting on the lawsuits and scientific debate identifies concerning ingredients such as formaldehyde, phthalates, parabens, and bisphenol A, which are associated with endocrine disruption. ## Source problem and origin claims Commercial histories of relaxers are often simplified into a single inventor story, but the documented usage history is broader than any one name or brand. The archive therefore treats “origin” as contested when a source reduces a wide market history to one neat invention tale, and it keeps the larger record in view: Black consumers, salons, advertisers, and chemical manufacturers all shaped the practice over time. ## Sources 1. National Institutes of Health, Sister Study: Ashley I. Bertrand et al., "Hair Relaxer Use and Risk of Uterine Cancer in Black Women," Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2022; Black Women’s Health Study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives / ScienceDirect-linked cohort reporting, 2023. 2. The Guardian, "Why some Black women won't or can't quit hair relaxers – even as the dangers become clearer," December 12, 2022; Chicago Sun-Times, "Inside the court fight over the safety of hair relaxers and Black hair care," April 3, 2024; The Guardian, "The truth about hair relaxers: in the US, lawsuits over cancer. In Africa, soaring sales," April 10, 2024. ## Related records - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/hair - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/black-beauty-culture - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/beauty-shop - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/black-women - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/garrett-augustus-morgan --- Cite as: Black's Encyclopedia, "Hair Relaxer," revised July 24, 2026. https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/hair-relaxer Text under the Black's Record License: cite the record, keep attribution attached, cite the revision date.