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The label on the shampoo bottle said it could smooth, soften, and revive hair.
Then customers’ hair started falling out, or so a class action lawsuit alleges.
Johnson & Johnson is being accused of putting dangerous chemicals in its shampoo. A lawsuit filed earlier this year against the company alleges Johnson & Johnson has been using a preservative known to cause hair loss in its OGX shampoo products.
And frightening as that allegation may be, Johnson & Johnson is not the only company being sued over putting chemicals in its hair care products, products that supposedly do anything but nourish or protect.
TRESemmé, WEN, and other shampoo brands have faced similar accusations of shoddy products over the years. Not only that, but there are even more lawsuits out there that have been filed against shampoo companies for allegedly using the exact same chemical that’s at issue in the Johnson & Johnson OGX lawsuit.
Johnson & Johnson OGX Shampoo Lawsuit
For some TikTok users, the Johnson & Johnson OGX lawsuit, filed June 26 by Plaintiff Larissa Whipple, explained a lot about what they’d been experiencing with their hair.
Several posts on the video-sharing app from over the summer showed users with fistfulls of hair that had fallen off of their scalps, or noting the flat quality of their locks after months of using OGX. Some remarked they could not figure out why their hair was in such bad condition until they heard about the lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson.
@dcalcara00 wish this would’ve happened before i used it for 6 months. #greenscreen #lawsuit #ogxshampoo #ogx
♬ original sound – Serena Ekram Khan
“My hair has never been thinner (and) it used to be thick and not see-through,” one TikTok user, @xoshishixo, wrote in the caption of her video from July 8. “I thought it was stress but now I heard about the lawsuit.”
@xoshishixo #ogx #ogxshampoo #ogxlawsuit #lawsuit #hairtransformation #bradmondo #bradmondonyc #bradmondoreacts
♬ Oh No – Kreepa
Many other TikTok users had similar stories to share — they thought their hair problems were attributable to stress or other environmental factors, until they heard that Johnson & Johnson was being sued.
@anniewtok99 ALL OGX SHAMPOOS/CONDITIONDERS ARE RECALLED FOR HAIR LOSS #ogx #ogxshampoo #foryoupage #fypシ #DontQuitYourDaydream #UltaSkinTok #PSA #recall #hairloss
♬ original sound – Annie ?
The thing is, Johnson & Johnson allegedly knew as far back as a decade ago that DMDM hydantoin “can cause or contribute to hair loss and scalp irritation,” to the OGX class action lawsuit. That’s why it announced in 2012 it would begin phasing out use of the chemical.
DMDM hydantoin, the hair-loss-causing preservative, is a formaldehyde donor, meaning it leeches cancer-causing formaldehyde in small amounts throughout the shelf life of a product it is included in. An assessment published in the International Journal of Toxicology showed DMDM hydantoin can be used safely in cosmetics — but only if the amount used does not exceed safety limits.
Johnson & Johnson, which did not return requests for comment for this story, actually includes DMDM hydantoin in a list on its website of preservatives that “do not meet our safety and care standards.”
And yet, the ingredient has remained in OGX shampoo products, which Johnson & Johnson acquired when it bought OGX maker Vogue International in 2016.
The OGX shampoo lawsuit describes Johnson & Johnson’s continued use of DMDM hydantoin, whether intentional or an oversight, as “inexplicable,” given its prior knowledge of the effects of the chemical.
There are two main claims in Whipple’s OGX shampoo lawsuit — that the company is falsely advertising the benefits of its OGX products, and that it did not include proper warning labels about the DMDM hydantoin ingredient.
“We have two case theories — essentially, the first is that the company makes claims on the front label of the products saying things like the shampoos and conditioners will smooth or nourish or soften hair, and we allege that those claims are false and misleading,” attorney Kevin Laukaitis, of Shub Law Firm, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff in her lawsuit.
Laukaitis also said: “these products did not contain any warnings about the fact that the products can cause hair loss and scalp damage, scalp burns, and therefore Johnson & Johnson omitted that information from the labels, and that’s another reason they violated the law.”
“Johnson & Johnson broke its promise to the consumers,” Laukaitis said. “They told the consumers one thing, that they would remove this ingredient, and they didn’t.”
And it’s a lot more common for shampoo and soap manufacturers to include DMDM hydantoin and other dangerous chemicals than consumers might think.
Does TRESemmé cause hair loss?
Unilever’s TRESemmé products, for instance, have been the target of similar accusations this year. Plaintiffs Emily Castillo, Shannon Keener, Robyn Lipetz, Alexandra Arroyo, Gustavo Flores, Nancy Jones, Zamara Colon, Kristi Keller, Hollie Parrish, and Corin Fondella, filed the TRESemmé lawsuit in June, the same month as the OGX lawsuit, claiming that Unilever included DMDM hydantoin in its hair products. The plaintiffs in the TRESemmé lawsuit are also represented by Shub Law Firm
Similar to Johnson & Johnson, Unilever included DMDM on its ingredient list in its TRESemmé products, according to the TRESemmé lawsuit, but did not include proper warning labels and falsely advertised the products as able to create “gorgeous, healthy-looking” hair.
Is Suave Professionals good for your hair?
In another lawsuit also against Unilever, plaintiff Deanna Lewakowski alleges the company put the same harmful DMDM ingredient in its Suave Professionals shampoo and conditioner products.
In that lawsuit, Lewakowski claims Unilever led consumers to falsely believe “that Suave Products help ‘nourish’ and ‘replenish’ hair and specifically to reduce hair loss,” when in reality, the products long contained DMDM hydantoin.
“Defendants used DMDM in the Products despite their actual knowledge that the ingredient is unsafe to consumers, and in direct contradiction to their misrepresentations that the Products are safe and healthy for use as shampoo by consumers,” Lewakowski said in her lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges Unilever did not remove DMDM from their products until November 2020, shortly after the TRESemmé lawsuit was filed.
Shub Law Firm is also representing plaintiffs in class actions against Paul Mitchell and Straight Arrow over Tea Tree Hair and Body Moisturizer and Mane’n’Tail shampoo and conditioner products, respectively.
WEN Hair Care: What ingredient in WEN causes hair loss?
But even beyond the Shub firm’s lawsuits, there’s a pretty long history, it turns out, of shampoo makers putting toxic chemicals in their products.
One relatively recent example is that of WEN by Chaz Dean hair care products.
Back in 2016, accusations began flying at WEN, alleging the brand’s supposedly premium hair care products promoted by celebrity hair stylist Chaz Dean actually caused hair loss. WEN purchasers reported significant hair loss, sharing images of bald spots and patches of thin hair.
The FDA launched an investigation of Guthy-Renker LLC, the seller of the WEN products, after receiving more than 100 complaints — a pretty high number for the FDA — about the product. The agency later found out that the company itself received more than 21,000 complaints.
WEN by Chaz Dean Inc. and Guthy-Renker LLC denied the claims but agreed to pay out a $26 million settlement after a WEN class action lawsuit was filed.
The FDA never reached a determination on the cause of the hair loss complaints from WEN products.
Herbal Essences Shampoo and Conditioner: Is Herbal Essences good?
In another well-known case, though, a shampoo maker was found to have put so much of a cancer-causing chemical in its products that tests found the products should have carried warning labels under California’s Proposition 65, which requires notices on items that use chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer.
The shampoo maker was Procter & Gamble. Back in 2010, Procter & Gamble decided to reformulate its Herbal Essences shampoos to reduce the amount of carcinogenic 1,4-doixane in them after the products were found to have high levels of the chemical.
In fact, the Green Patriot Working Group, which tests products for dioxane levels, planned to file a lawsuit against Procter & Gamble to force it to put warning labels on its Herbal Essences products before the company decided to reduce the amounts of dioxane in those products on its own.
DMDM hydantoin and other toxic chemicals in hair products
There are all sorts of reasons why companies might knowingly or unknowingly put toxic chemicals in products, but in the case of Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and other companies being sued over DMDM hydantoin, Laukaitis, the Shub Law Firm lawyer, said the companies are using the chemical as a preservative.
“This is a preservative that is really in there to kind of make products more shelf-stable, and essentially it’s a cost effective measure,” Laukaitis said. “They can put the product on the shelves longer. Our complaints allege that there are alternative preservatives they could use that don’t have these safety concerns. And for whatever reason, the companies chose not to.”
DMDM hydantoin is dangerous, Laukaitis said. And Laukaitis said Johnson & Johnson, and other companies that have used the chemical, had to have known this.
“A lot of news stories are out there about the dangers of using the DMDM ingredient, so we do believe these companies were aware,” he said.
Whether or not the companies really were aware of what they were doing, one thing is clear — it’s not always guaranteed that hair care products will really do as much “care” as they advertise. So it may be wise, as these lawsuits show, to check the labels.
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1,114 thoughts onOGX Shampoo, TRESemmé, WEN: Johnson & Johnson not the only brand to be accused of putting dangerous chemicals in shampoo
I use most of these shampoos…
Between my husband and I we have and do use most of these products and both have ridiculous hair loss issues. How can we signup?
Yes please add my name. Herbal Essenses has dried my hair to a crisp. Thin and crunchy.
I use Treseme products and am very concerned. But I do wonder why these actions are not being pursued in class action lawsuits against plastic producing companies as well
I need to see if I qualify
I used ZoBX, Aussie products, Dove Men’s Shampoo and Maui moisturizing conditioner with sea salt. I want to be part of this lawsuit as my hair was falling out
I used Garnier l, Tresseme and Suave shampoos and conditioners for years. I have ALWAYS had very thick (good) hair, but in the last couple of years I see my part widening and it is falling out in the shower. I am disgusted…I attributed to stress…my husband passed away at 55 last summer from a glioblastoma …7 weeks from diagnosis to passing. He also used all of these products.
I’ve used OGX shampoo and conditioner my scalp became very dry and flaky, my hair was very brittle and fell out , I had to have my hair cut down to nothing so that it would start to grow again…