Woman Claims Salon Snuck Relaxer into Her Shampoo, Ruining Her Natural Hair

This is a seriously messed up story. A woman in Georgia claims that when she went to a salon for a blowout, the stylist secretly mixed relaxer into her shampoo — to make the blowout easier – and ruined her hair.

Fusion reports that a Facebook post, showing some pretty damaged looking hair, detailed how, after the shampoo and blowdry, she “decided to put my hair into 2 strand twists and wet it and now it refuses to curl.” She went on to write that she called the salon and the woman she spoke to said they used a small amount of relaxer mixed into the shampoo – without telling her.

She went on to write that while she’s been growing out her natural hair, it was now thin and completely ruined. If someone is trying to grow out their natural hair, they do not want relaxer – a chemical that alters the structure of the hair in order to straighten it. Repeated relaxing can cause excessive hair breakage, irreversible hair loss, and follicular damage. Further, hair straightening is a practice that is fraught with emotional and physical pain for many people of color, and the path to natural hair acceptance has been a bumpy road for many.

The woman mentioned two salons in her post, so it’s not totally clear which one allegedly put the relaxer in her hair. One of the salons, Lizbeth Dominican, posted an aggressive denial on its Facebook page. The other, Lucy’s, had no comment on the story when Yahoo Beauty called. We reached out to the author of the tweet, but have not heard back.