Hair-straightening cream tied to woman's repeated kidney damage

A woman developed kidney damage on three separate occasions after receiving hair-straightening treatments at a salon. Her doctors say one of the products used likely caused the organ injuries.

The 26-year-old woman visited a salon to receive the popular hair treatment in June 2020, April 2021 and July 2022. She'd had no previous Health problems, but on the day of each visit, she experienced vomiting, diarrhea, fever and back pain. She reported feeling burning on her scalp during the hair treatment and developed ulcers on her head shortly afterwards. 

Doctors found she also had raised levels of creatinine in her blood, a sign that her kidneys were malfunctioning. She had blood in her urine but showed no other signs of infection, and her urinary system, which includes the kidneys, bladder, ureters and urethra, was not blocked, a computed tomography (CT) scan showed. 

At each salon appointment, the woman's hair was treated with a straightening cream containing the chemical glyoxylic acid. This likely caused her scalp to burn and ulcerate, her doctors suggested in a report of her case, published March 21 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Based on experiments in mice, they also theorized that the acid absorbed through her skin and reached her kidneys, which caused damage upon being broken down.

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The authors have "demonstrated convincingly that applying [hair straightening creams containing glyoxylic acid] topically can cause kidney damage," Dr. Joshua David King, an associate professor of medicine and pharmacy at the University of Maryland who was not involved in the case, told Live Science in an email. 

"It would seem wise to ban the use of glyoxylic acid in these products and request that manufacturers find another, safer compound," he said.