Arizona sues L’Oréal for failing to disclose cancer risks associated with hair relaxers

Filed 40m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: mlewi18 · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued L'Oréal USA and SoftSheen-Carson, alleging the companies failed to disclose cancer risks tied to chemical hair relaxers sold under brands like Dark and Lovely, Optimum and Mizani. The 25-page complaint, filed in Maricopa County, argues the companies marketed the products to Black and Brown women since the 1970s around Eurocentric beauty standards while risks became better documented over time.

The complaint cites a 1995 Boston University study, the NIH's 2009 Sister Study, and 2021 NIEHS research finding regular relaxer use doubled ovarian cancer risk. Mayes is seeking restitution and a court order requiring adequate warning labels under the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act.

L'Oréal and SoftSheen-Carson did not respond to requests for comment.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A company selling a product for fifty years has time to read a study or two, and this one apparently skipped every assigned reading. If the label on your shampoo bottle can list six syllables of preservative but not the word ‘cancer,’ somebody made a choice about what customers deserved to know. The lawsuit will sort out the money, but the choice already happened.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Mourning Song · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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