Growing up with a Black mom and grandma, I was conditioned to associate a few key things with femininity: a thoroughly lotioned and glistening body, gold jewelry, and always smelling amazing. As an adult, I carry on the legacy of smelling good by maintaining an impressive arsenal of perfumes, scented body oils, and lotions. But despite my efforts, I can never quite replicate that sweet, long-lasting scent my elders achieved. It wasn’t until I was scrolling on TikTok recently that I came across the thing I didn’t realize I’d been missing: dusting powder.
If you’re unfamiliar, dusting powder is a finely milled scented powder used on the body to keep moisture at bay, soften the skin, and make you smell good—or clean, at the very least. Dusting powders were particularly popular back in the ‘80s and ‘90s (especially among Black women) but body powders first hit America in the 1890s when Johnson & Johnson began to market their now-famous baby powder.
Dusting powders have been quiet in the mainstream for a few decades—more on why in a minute—but, this year, Black women have been leading a revival of the product by sharing their DIY dusting powder concoctions on TikTok under #dustingpowder, which, at the time I’m writing this, has over 1,100 videos tagged to it. “Let’s bring back perfume dusting powders for magnetism and glamour magic,” one user writes in the caption of her video.
If the booming fragrance industry is any indication, people have not lost the desire to smell good. So why did dusting powders go out of style? One culprit could be the public’s wariness about talc, a primary ingredient in a lot of those powders that were popular 30+ years ago. “Talc is a naturally occurring mineral that was [commonly] used as a sensory modifier and absorbent in powder products,” says cosmetic chemist Amanda Lam. Talc is not harmful by nature, but some talc-based products have tested positive for asbestos contamination, giving talc a bad reputation overall.
The beginnings of widespread concern about talc began in the 1970s after cancer researchers tested 20 powder products made with talc and found 10 of them had asbestos. In 1997, a claim was made against Johnson & Johnson by a woman alleging that the use of the company’s baby powder led to her developing cancer. That case was ultimately dropped, but other lawsuits arose in the following years, further causing the reputation of body powders to drop—with consumers and manufacturers. “Ever since the ongoing Johnson & Johnson lawsuits, companies have been wary of using talc,” says Lam.
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