L’Oreal Hair Relaxer Linked to Cancer

Alicia Smith, a Cleveland woman who has been using L’Oreal relaxer products since 1989, has filed suit against L’Oreal USA Inc, and others, hitting them with product liability claims.

L’Oreal has faced a wave of lawsuits alleging product liability claims that their hair relaxers, primarily marketed to black women, cause uterine cancer. The chemicals present in those hair relaxers have been said to nearly double the likelihood of a user developing uterine cancer. The chemicals disrupt the endocrine system and wreak havoc on natural hormone levels, disallowing the normal function of the body and its systems simultaneously.

Black women, in particular, suffer from this increased risk because the relaxers are marketed specifically to them, the suit alleged, as an alternative way to make their naturally kinky hair straighter and smoother.

The complaint further states that “defendants market their relaxer products to Black customers across the nation and throughout the world, reinforcing the same Eurocentric standards of beauty” utilizing “marketing schemes [that] rely heavily on branding and slogans that reinforce straight hair as the ultimate beauty standard.”

According to the complaint, Smith started using the products in 1989, and had never been warned about the potential cancer risks associated with them. She was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2019 with no family history of the affliction or any cancer related history either. Smith alleges in the complaint that the chemicals in the L’Oreal hair relaxers are to blame for her cancer, her use of the relaxer which did not end until 2020.

Smith’s case is just one of the many filed in the wake of the release of a report from the National Institute of Health that formally established a link between hair relaxer products and uterine cancer, many of which name L’Oreal as a defendant. Other defendants in the suits are: Softsheen-Carson, Inc.; Strength of Nature, LLC; Godrej Consumer Products Ltd/Adr; Godrej Son Holdings, Inc.; and Luster, Inc.

Smith seeks damages, reimbursement for products purchased, interest, and attorneys fees. The complaint further brings seven additional claims including failure to warn, negligence, and fraudulent concealment.