When I was pregnant with my son, I began investigating the products in my household and how many of them were harmful to my baby. It was an eye opening experience. As it turned out, my scented candles contained formaldehyde, my talc was loaded with asbestos, my lipstick was laced with lead, my ‘natural’ hair products brimming with endocrine-disrupters, and more.

As I navigated the switch to a nontoxic lifestyle with my trusted product-scanning app at my side, it hadn’t yet dawned on me that I was wading through yet another area of life that is infected by systemic racism.

Three years into my journey, I came across a Harvard School of Public Health study that had found that 50% of hair products marketed to Black women contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, compared to just 7% of products marketed to white women.