Natural Care Products May Contain Synthetic Ingredients

Store shelves are packed with personal care products labeled as “natural.” Often, a quick look at the ingredient list can immediately call the truth of that labeling into question.

Many ongoing consumer class action lawsuits are now struggling to determine what makes these natural personal care products truly natural.

In New York, Colgate-Palmolive is facing a class action lawsuit over its Tom’s of Maine brand of toothpaste. The plaintiffs assert that Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, which is promoted as “natural,” contains allegedly non-natural ingredients such as glycerin and sodium lauryl sulfate, ingredients that are also used in shampoo and dish-washing detergent. Plaintiffs are seeking over $5 million in damages.

One state over, a New Jersey federal judge has given preliminary approval to a $1.9 million settlement over whether Arm & Hammer Natural Deodorant can be truly “natural” when it contains triclosan, a synthetic antibacterial ingredient that according to some studies may be detrimental to human health.

And in California, the Hain Celestial Group and JASON Natural Products Inc. are being sued for their lines of products labeled “All Natural,” “Pure Natural,” or “Pure, Natural and Organic,” some of which turned out to contain allegedly non-natural ingredients such as benzyl alcohol and, according to the plaintiffs, “airplane anti-freeze.”

The labeling of natural personal care products falls under the authority of the FDA, which regulates that practice under the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA. Despite the large number of ongoing class action lawsuits over natural care products, the FDA still has not adopted a formal definition of what makes an ingredient “natural.”

Still, courts have dismissed or stayed certain class action lawsuits in deference to the FDA’s authority to take action on that particular issue, a concept known as the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. In the context of natural personal care products, the courts have deferred to the FDA’s authority even though the agency seems to have made a point of not exercising it.

Plaintiffs have other options for legal theories that don’t fall under the FDA’s purview. Some natural care products class action lawsuits raise claims under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. This act is a federal law passed in 1975 that bolsters state law warranty requirements.

In cases where a breach of warranty may meet the qualifications for a class action lawsuit, the act may allow plaintiffs to sue in federal court and win their court costs and attorneys’ fees if they are successful.

In addition to violating federal law, misbranding of natural personal care products can also give rise to claims under state law, including fraud, quasi-contract, and state consumer protection laws. Some of these state laws can be preempted by federal law, such as by the FDCA, which expressly preempts state labeling requirements that vary from federal ones.

But preemption can be legally complex, and the complexity sometimes provides plaintiffs a way around preemption. California’s Sherman Food Drug and Cosmetic Law, for example, incorporates all the requirements of the federal FDCA, and at the same time it provides that violations of the Sherman law support a claim under the state Unfair Competition Law.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys can sometimes take advantage of this intricacy to get a natural care product labeling claim around FDCA preemption.

Free All Natural Personal Care Products Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

Did you purchase a personal care product because the label said it was “Natural,” “All Natural,” “100% Natural” or used a similar term? You may be eligible to join a free class action lawsuit investigation and pursue compensation for your purchase(s) due to the potential use of deceptive labels and/or marketing.

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