Blistex Class Action Says Lip Ointment Tube Defect Short-Changes Consumers

A California woman says the dispenser for Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment prevents consumers from getting nearly a quarter of the product they pay for.

Plaintiff Alana Hillen claims defendant Blistex Inc. packages its Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment in a tube that isn’t suitable for the purpose it’s used for.

Hillen says these tubes are incapable of dispensing the last 23 percent of the ointment, forcing consumers to throw away a significant amount of product, then buy more Blistex to replace it.

Though Blistex comes in a few different forms and packages, Hillen specifically takes issue with the squeezable tubes used to package Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment. These flexible tubes work like miniature toothpaste tubes, squeezing the tube at one end dispenses the paste-like lip ointment out the other end.

According to the Blistex class action lawsuit, the problem lies in the hard plastic dispenser at the end of the tube. While the dispenser appears to be solid plastic, Hillen says it’s actually hollow.

The space inside is large enough to hold almost a quarter of the total amount of lip ointment, Hillen says; and because the dispenser is rigid plastic, consumers can’t squeeze it to get that product out. As a result, a six-gram tube of Blistex will yield only about 4.65 grams of product, she says.

The alleged design flaw has led millions of consumers to unknowingly discard significant amounts of product and to purchase more Blistex than they really need, Hillen claims. After purchasing five tubes of Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment, she says, a consumer has already lost more than a full tube’s worth of product.

Multiply those small amounts of lost product by the millions of tubes of Blistex sold every year, and the stakes quickly become higher than they might seem at first, Hillen claims. Blistex Inc.’s revenue allegedly runs between $23 million and $137 million per year, sharing about half the lip balm market with its main competitor ChapStick.

“No functional justification exists for the hollow plastic dispenser,” Hillen alleges. “The product would function equally well with a solid plastic dispenser, a thin or smaller dispenser, or a flat cap.” She notes that Blistex sold in foreign markets is packaged in a different tube that does not present the same problem.

Hillen says she is a regular purchaser of Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment. She claims she didn’t discover the flaw in Blistex tubes until January 2017.

Hillen proposes to represent a plaintiff Class that would cover all persons in the U.S. who bought Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment within three years of filing this action.

She is asking for a court order requiring Blistex to inform Class Members of the alleged defect. She also seeks an award of damages and restitution with interest, plus reimbursement of court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Hillen is represented by attorneys Robert J. Pavich of Pavich Law Group PC and Charles J. Zimmerman, Michael J. Laird and Caleb Marker of Zimmerman Reed LLP.

The Blistex Medicated Ointment Defective Dispenser Class Action Lawsuit is Alana Hillen v. Blistex Inc., Case No. 1:17-cv-02074, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On May 24, 2017, Blistex urged an Illinois federal judge to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging its Medicated Lip Ointment tubes are deceptive because their design makes it such that consumers cannot access nearly 25 percent of the product contained in the tube.