L’Oréal Class Action Says Total Repair Balm Can’t Live Up to Label Claims

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A woman from New York says L’Oréal Total Repair hair balm can’t possibly repair hair the way its label claims it can.

Plaintiff Vivian Lee is challenging the way defendant L’Oréal USA Inc. markets its L’Oréal Paris Advanced Haircare Total Repair 5 Damage Erasing Balm. Representations on the product’s label and on L’Oréal’s website say Total Repair can “repair” several signs of hair damage.

Lee claims there isn’t a single ingredient in L’Oréal Total Repair that can actually repair hair. The company’s promises of hair repair are therefore false, misleading, and likely to deceive the public, she claims.

According to Lee’s L’Oréal Total Repair class action lawsuit, the company’s promotional materials claim that Total Repair “repairs up to 1 year of damage in 1 use.” The company asserts Total Repair “instantly repairs the 5 signs of damage – split ends, weakness, roughness, dullness and dehydration.”

She includes an image of the label for Total Repair, which claims it “Deeply repairs and reconstructs – dry chemically treated hair.”

But according to Lee, the ingredients in Total Repair are unable to have any beneficial structural effect on damaged hair. Repairing hair would require ingredients that work on keratin, the protein that hair is primarily composed of, she claims.

The conditioning ingredients in Total Repair do not act directly on keratin, she alleges. Ingredients like behentrimonium chloride, amodimethicone and hydroxypropyl guar “might very temporarily enhance the illusion of healthy hair,” but they can’t actually repair hair because they don’t work on keratin, she claims.

“Defendant does not provide the public with any peer-reviewed, independent clinical studies that show the Product or any of the ingredients cause damaged hair to be repaired within the claimed time frame,” the class action lawsuit states.

Lee says she bought a jar of L’Oréal Total Repair from a Walgreens in Manhattan sometime within the 12 months prior to filing this action. She says she decided to buy Total Repair in reliance on the label representations.

But after paying more than $9 and using the product according to its instructions, Lee says it failed to provide the promised hair repair. She claims that because of the mislabeling, she and proposed Class Members paid a premium for Total Repair that they would not have paid for similar products that don’t make the same assertions.

Her L’Oréal Total Repair class action lawsuit raises claims for negligent misrepresentation, breach of express warranties, unjust enrichment, and violation of New York’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Lee is proposing to represent a plaintiff Class consisting of all persons in the U.S. who bought L’Oréal Total Repair for their personal use. She is also proposing a subclass consisting of Class Members who bought the product within New York.

She seeks restitution and disgorgement of all money gained by the defendant through its allegedly deceptive advertising. She also seeks reimbursement of her attorney’s fees and costs of litigation, plus pre- and post-judgment interest.

Lee is represented by attorney C.K. Lee and Anne Seelig of Lee Litigation Group PLLC.

The L’Oréal Total Repair False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Vivian Lee v. L’Oréal USA Inc., Case No. 1:16-cv-09266, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.