Health Concerns
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that Brazilian Blowouts are hazardous to the health of the women who use them and the hairdressers who apply them.
Concerns over the presence of formaldehyde in various hair smoothing products at significant concentrations centered whether methylene glycol could legally be synonymous with formaldehyde. Anhydrous formaldehyde gas readily dissolves in and reacts with water to form an equilibrium solution of methylene glycol. When heated, the equilibrium shifts and favors the production of formaldehyde and water. Thus, the manufacturer of Brazlian Blowout argued that methylene glycol is in their products, not formaldehyde, and therefore they can claim that their product was formaldehyde-free. The first involves nomenclature. The second issue is the method by which formaldehyde concentration is measured. The third involves measurements of formaldehyde concentration in bottles of the product in which the reported concentration is dependent upon both the method of measurement and nomenclature. However, the company reached a settlement with the state of California and is no longer claiming their products are formaldehyde free.
Read more about this topic: Brazilian Hair Straightening
Famous quotes containing the words health and/or concerns:
“Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygeine [sic] of the body, and hygeine of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)