Is Your Favorite Straightening Treatment Now Banned?
By Elizabeth Angell, Allure magazine
The Canadian government recently banned the sale of a number of popular hair-straightening products. The treatments, which are usually used in hair salons and typically not sold directly to the public, were linked to reports of hair loss, watery eyes, and other symptoms consistent with overexposure to formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen that is dangerous to both salon clients and employees.
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Health Canada, that country's equivalent of the FDA, blocked the following products, most of which originate in the US:
- Brazilian Keratin Treatment
- Advanced Brazilian Keratin Treatment
- Chocolate Extreme De-Frizzing Treatment
- Keratin Complex Smoothing Therapy - Global Keratin Taming System Strawberry - Global Keratin Taming System with Juvexin Strawberry Resistant - Global Keratin Taming System with Juvexin Strawberry Light Wave - Pro-Collagen RX Keratin Treatment - IStraight Keratin (Advanced Keratin Treatment) - Brazilian Thermal Reconstruction
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In Canada, beauty products are allowed to have up to 0.2 percent formaldehyde, which is typically used as a preservative. In Health Canada's test of the now-banned products, the highest formaldehyde content was 7 percent, while the lowest contained 1.4 percent.
Similar treatments, many of which have the words "Brazilian hair-straightening" in their name, have been the subject of controversy since 2007, when Allure first reported that several products contained potentially dangerous levels of formaldehyde. In our January issue, which is on newsstands next week, we report on the recent warning issued by the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that several straightening treatments that claimed to be formaldehyde-free actually did contain it.
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Photo Credit: Fairchild Archive
