Michele Tracy Berger
I got the seed of the idea from watching the drama of the ‘Rio’ scandal unfold.
In the early 1990s The World Rio Corporation released a product known as Rio, billed as a natural hair relaxer, marketed almost exclusively to Black women, and as an option to traditional relaxers. This was a very well promoted product with slick and enticing infomercials. Rio promised an easy and healthy alternative to other products on the market. Soon though women began reporting horrible reactions to Rio including itchy scalps, oozing blisters and significant hair loss. A class action lawsuit revealed that there was nothing natural, at all, about Rio. Rio actually contained a number of highly acidic chemicals!
I’ve always been interested in the politics of hair, Black hair culture and viruses, so the Rio scandal provided a perfect runway to imagine ‘what if’.
In the early 1990s The World Rio Corporation released a product known as Rio, billed as a natural hair relaxer, marketed almost exclusively to Black women, and as an option to traditional relaxers. This was a very well promoted product with slick and enticing infomercials. Rio promised an easy and healthy alternative to other products on the market. Soon though women began reporting horrible reactions to Rio including itchy scalps, oozing blisters and significant hair loss. A class action lawsuit revealed that there was nothing natural, at all, about Rio. Rio actually contained a number of highly acidic chemicals!
I’ve always been interested in the politics of hair, Black hair culture and viruses, so the Rio scandal provided a perfect runway to imagine ‘what if’.
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