Mother Faces Backlash for Posting TikTok Video of 3-Year-Old Getting a Perm

A video posted by a mother to a 3-year old girl shows her toddler getting a perm in a beauty salon. This has caused backlash.

In the video, a hairstylist is seen applying a chemical straightener to the child’s hair. The video then shows the little girl getting the relaxer shampooed out of her hair before she returns back to the stylist’s chair to finish the styling process. The 3-year-old is seen with her hair in braids and extensions.

The toddler smiles big and brightly at the camera after the visit to the salon.

Video has been viewed over 700,000. Since its last posting, commenters quickly flood the comments.

“I won’t judge mom but feel that if you start relaxing and putting extension at such young age this lead to not feeling pretty unless she add something,” one commenter wrote.

“It’s not about the hair not being healthy but the studies that are all out of relaxers giving us cancer n stuff that worries me,” wrote another.

Some, however, supported the mother’s decision.

“lol i got my 1st perm at 3! My hair is still long & healthy permed hair,” a user typed.

“Awww baby’s happy and mama’s happy!! That’s all that matter,” another user expressed.

Children and adults who use chemically-based hair straightening tools are at risk. higher risk of developing uterine cancer? new study at the National Institutes of Health revealed. This study revealed that Black women are more at risk than white women because they are more likely use the products.

Study participants included 33,000 women. Those who used chemical straighteners four or more times per year were twice as susceptible to developing uterine carcinoma. Research has long warned that hair products containing parabens phthalates, phthalates, and fragrances can disrupt hormone regulation. These disruptions can increase your risk of developing uterine carcinoma, which is a common form of cancer in the female reproductive system.

“Sixty percent of the participants who reported using straighteners were Black women. The bottom line is that the exposure burden appears to be higher among Black women,” Chandra Jackson, a participant in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Earl Stadtman Investigators program, told NBC News.

The study’s lead author, Alexandra White, the head of the agency’s Environment and Cancer Epidemiology group, said: “We see a doubling of risk for frequent users, and that’s a very alarming figure. Non-users have an absolute risk of 1.64%. Frequent users are at 4.05%. It’s a notable increase in risk.”

This year alone, there have been a reported 65,000 new cases of uterine cancer in the US – roughly three percent of all new cancer cases the study found.

Although Eurocentric standards of beauty have pressured some women to relax their natural hair, a new phenomenon, or the “natural hair movement,” has seen a large swath of women forgoing hair straightening products and embracing their coils.

Natural hair was not a popular trend before the advent of social media. The movement gained popularity in the 1960s/70s when Hollywood’s leading actresses began wearing Afros on film sets and red carpets. Famous actresses such as Pam Grier They were the first women to embrace natural style, and they helped to create an iconic look that would last for generations.

“In the 1970s, natural hair was essentially like a resistance to Eurocentric standards of beauty, kind of in line with the social and racial justice movements that were happening at that time,” said Quani BurnettA strategist for inclusion and the creator of beauty4brownskin.

There are similarities between the past and the present. More Black women are starting to embrace their natural hair as a symbol of Blackness and Black identity, thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ware was one of those who resisted natural hair, admitting that she had experienced it at an inflection point in her life. She was in college and wasn’t sure if she was ready to make the transition at the tim, she recalled.

“I think once the natural hair movement started, I was in college and I kind of felt a little pressure to go natural,” said Ware. “I was at an HBCU, you know? I would get to see a lot of women who wore their natural curls and all the things and I wanted to, but I was like, ‘college doesn’t feel like a good time to transition.’” When she graduated, she says, “I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna go natural.’”

Some women have decided to relax their hair longer. There are many reasons, some of which include the hassle and time involved in maintaining natural hair. Some people simply like the way straight hair frames their faces and allows them to have looser curls.

“The past year, I was just like, I do not like being natural. Every day, I train. I also have work events every day where I have to have my hair done and all the things, and it just stopped making sense for me,” said Ware, who went back and forth between natural and relaxed throughout her hair journey.

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