L’Oreal Class Action Says Amla Relaxer Causes Hair Loss and Skin Burns

Three women are taking L’Oreal to task in a consumer class action lawsuit over claims that the company’s Amla Relaxer causes hair loss and skin damage.

Plaintiffs Lavette Jacobs, Tiffany Raines and Sandi Turnipseed are suing defendants L’Oreal USA Inc. and Soft Sheen-Carson LLC.

They claim that the two manufacturers of Amla Relaxer make representations that the product leaves hair stronger and healthier, when it actually causes hair to fall out in clumps and leave the user’s skin burned and irritated.

The plaintiffs quote several negative online product reviews allegedly posted by consumers who suffered hair damage after using Amla Relaxer.

The class action states that the defendants responded to these negative reviews by contacting the consumers who posted the reviews and offered to reimburse them for expenses related to their alleged injuries, including costs for medical treatment and wigs.

That practice shows the defendants knew about the problems Amla Relaxer was causing, the plaintiffs argue. They say the defendants have known about these problems for at least three years.

At the same time the defendants were paying off individual consumers, they continued to market Amla Relaxer without issuing any warning about the associated problems, the plaintiffs say.

Each of the plaintiffs claims suffering from unexpected harm after using Amla Relaxer.

Jacobs says that immediately after using Amla Relaxer according to the instructions, her scalp began to burn and her hair started falling out. She says she still suffers from hair loss. Jacobs claims she had to cut her remaining hair and get extensions to cover the hair loss.

Raines says Amla Relaxer made her scalp burn and her hair fall out, even though she had previously used other hair relaxers without any hair loss or significant injuries. She claims that an expensive hair regrowth product failed to restore her lost hair, and she had to resort to getting extensions.

Turnipseed says she bought Amla Relaxer specifically because she wanted to grow her hair longer, and she believed Amla’s no-mix and no-lye formula would not reduce her hair’s strength. She claims that she never would have bought Amla Relaxer if she had known it could cause hair loss. Nevertheless, after using Amla Relaxer, Turnipseed says her hair fell out in clumps and she developed scabs on her scalp and forehead that took weeks to heal.

The three plaintiffs are proposing to represent a nationwide plaintiff Class consisting of “[a]ll purchasers of Soft Sheen-Carson Optimum Salon Haircare brand Amla Legend Rejuvenating Ritual Relaxer in the United States or its territories between January 1, 2013 and the present.”

They are also proposing three subclasses consisting of Class Members from each of the named plaintiffs’ home states of New York, Florida and Kentucky.

The plaintiffs seek a damage award to include statutory damages available under various consumer protection laws, plus reimbursement of their attorneys’ fees and costs of litigation.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Jonathan K. Tycko and Andrea Gold of Tycko & Zavareei LLP; Rachel Soffin and Jonathan B. Cohen of Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group; and by Nick Suciu III of Barbat, Mansour & Suciu PLLC.

The L’Oreal Amla Relaxer Defective Product Class Action Lawsuit is Lavette Jacobs, et al. v. L’Oreal USA Inc., et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-06593, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

UPDATE: Feb. 22, 2017, a new L’Oreal Amla Hair Relaxer class action will be added to multiple lawsuits that have been consolidated and transferred to multidistrict litigation.

UPDATE 2: On April 3, 2018, a judge tossed most claims in a multidistrict litigation claiming that L’Oreal’s Amla Legend Rejuvenating Ritual Relaxer kit is unsafe.