RESTYLE Study
RESTYLE or Retail Environment and Hair Styling Exposure Study is a community-based project in the Environmental Reproductive Justice Lab at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. RESTYLE aims to explore what factors may be impacting safer hair product availability among Black women and find potential community-based solutions in the greater Boston, MA area.
community partners
We partnered with several community partners in Boston, MA for RESTYLE:
- Bethel AME Church, Jamaica Plain
- Union Capital Boston
- Resilient Sisterhood Project
- Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center
- Comics in Color
How safe are personal care products?
Personal care products are the products that we use for cleansing our bodies or changing our appearance.
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These products include toothpaste, soap, makeup, and hair products.
Personal care products are not tested for safety before they are sold in stores.
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The Food and Drug Administration (the United States government agency in charge of personal care product safety) has only banned or restricted 11 ingredients from use in personal care products.
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As a result, these products have been found to contain a number of concerning ingredients such as endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals are natural or man-made chemicals that are found to impact our body’s hormone system (the endocrine system).
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Research has found that Black communities use more products, such as hair products, containing endocrine disrupting chemicals.
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Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals may be linked to health effects including childhood asthma, low birth weight infants, and uterine cancer. It is important to note that using certain products and being exposed to these chemicals does not mean that you will develop these health effects.
Which products we choose to use is a personal decision. However, there are a variety of factors that may impact which products we use. In terms of hair products, beauty standards that value straight and long hair may contribute to the use of chemical hair relaxers among communities of color.
We know enough to know who is impacted by this issue—but how do we make sure that everyone has access to safer products?
The RESTYLE co-researchers* participated in photovoice, a community-engaged research tool that uses photography, small group discussions, and interviews to capture the stories and experiences of their community.
The three goals of photovoice are:
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to enable people to record and reflect on their community’s strengths and concerns
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to promote conversations about important issues
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to reach policymakers
(Wang and Burris, 1997)
The RESTYLE Community Art Gallery highlights community perspectives, voices, and stories on what supports and prevents safer hair product purchasing and use among Black women in the greater Boston area.
Please enjoy the incredible photos and stories told by the 21 co-researchers of RESTYLE.
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*co-researchers: Folks involved in the RESTYLE study. Researchers typically use the term "participants" to describe individuals involved in research studies, however, based on their roles in this project co-researcher is a more accurate term.
