Dozens of Lawsuits Over L'Oreal's Hair Relaxers Filed in US Federal Court

In October 2022, a study was published by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Safety which said that the usage of L'Oreal's hair relaxer multiple times a year could lead to uterine cancer.

Lawsuits claiming hair relaxer products sold by cosmetics giant L’Oreal USA Inc. and other companies could cause cancer will be consolidated. According to a Monday order from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, 57 lawsuits have been filed against the US subsidiary L’Oreal SA and subsidiaries of India-based companies Godrej SON Holdings Inc. and Dabur International Ltd.

According to court records, the lawsuits claim that the products made by the companies to straighten textured hair contain dangerous chemicals and that the manufacturers were aware that those chemical were unsafe, but marketed and sold their products nevertheless.

Last year, a US National Institutes of Health study claimed that women who regularly used hair relaxer products were at higher risk of uterine cancer.

“We estimated that 1.64% of women who never used hair straighteners would go on to develop uterine cancer by the age of 70, but for frequent users, that risk goes up to 4.05%,” study leader Alexandra White said, as quoted by US media.

The first case was filed by Diandra Debrosse Zimmermann of DiCello Levitt after the study was published. According to her, thousands of women could end up suing over the products, which are usually marketed to women of color.

After the first lawsuits were filed, L’Oreal, for its part, said that it is “confident in the safety of our products and believe the recent lawsuits filed against us have no legal merit.”