L’Oréal Lawsuits: Hair Relaxer, Benzene, and Hair Dye Claims

A L’Oréal lawsuit today most likely refers to one of the thousands of hair relaxer cancer cases pending against the company in a federal multidistrict litigation in Chicago, where more than 11,000 women allege that products including Dark & Lovely, Optimum, and Mizani caused uterine, ovarian, or endometrial cancer. L’Oréal also faces smaller litigation over benzene contamination in acne products and bladder cancer claims tied to professional hair dyes. As of mid-2026, none of these cases have gone to trial and no settlements have been announced.¹

What the Hair Relaxer Cases Allege

The central claims target L’Oréal’s subsidiary SoftSheen-Carson and the relaxer lines Dark & Lovely, Optimum, and Mizani. Plaintiffs say these products contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including phthalates, parabens, and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, that interfere with hormone systems and raise the risk of reproductive cancers.² The complaints allege L’Oréal knew or should have known its products were dangerous and failed to warn users.³

The primary injuries alleged are uterine cancer, endometrial cancer, and ovarian cancer. Some plaintiffs also claim uterine fibroids or endometriosis, though legal observers expect those claims to carry lower settlement values than the cancer cases.⁴

L’Oréal is one of more than a dozen manufacturer defendants. The MDL also names Revlon, Namaste Laboratories, Strength of Nature, Luster Products, Avlon, Sally Beauty Supply, and McBride Research Laboratories, among others.¹ Dark & Lovely appears repeatedly in individual complaints as one of the most widely used products at issue.

This is not a class action. Each plaintiff has an individual case; the MDL structure only consolidates pretrial work like discovery and motions.²

The Study Behind the Litigation

The filings followed an October 2022 study by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Drawing on data from 33,497 women in the federal “Sister Study” cohort, the researchers identified 378 cases of uterine cancer over nearly 11 years of follow-up and found that women who used hair-straightening products more than four times a year were more than twice as likely to develop the disease compared to women who never used them.⁵ The estimated risk of developing uterine cancer by age 70 was 1.64 percent for non-users and 4.05 percent for frequent users.⁶

The study noted that about 60 percent of participants who reported recent straightener use were Black women, who tend to begin using these products at younger ages and use them more often.⁵ The authors called their findings “the first epidemiologic evidence of association between use of straightening products and uterine cancer” while acknowledging that more research was warranted and that no specific brands were tracked.⁶

Days after publication, Jenny Mitchell, a Missouri woman diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2018, filed the first suit against L’Oréal and other manufacturers, alleging decades of use of products including Dark & Lovely caused her illness.⁷

Where the MDL Stands

In February 2023, a federal judicial panel consolidated the cases into In re: Hair Relaxer Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3060, before Judge Mary M. Rowland in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.⁸ By June 2026, the MDL held more than 11,700 active lawsuits.⁹

Key Rulings

In November 2023, Judge Rowland denied the bulk of the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss, letting claims of negligence, defective design, and failure to warn proceed. She dismissed three counts and part of a fourth, finding the plaintiffs had not sufficiently supported their fraud allegations.¹⁰

In May 2025, the court dismissed L’Oréal S.A., the French parent company, from the MDL on personal jurisdiction grounds, ruling that owning a U.S. patent or licensing brands to an American subsidiary was not enough to subject the foreign entity to U.S. courts.¹¹ L’Oréal USA and SoftSheen-Carson remain defendants.

Bellwether Trials

No trial has been held. The case is in bellwether preparation, where a small group of representative cases is tried first to help both sides gauge jury response. Judge Rowland selected 32 cases for an initial bellwether pool, and defendants have completed depositions of 29 of those plaintiffs.¹² In April 2026, she chose her own list of 10 cases to advance to the next stage rather than accepting either side’s proposals.⁹

A “Science Day” was held on January 8, 2026, to walk the court through the medical evidence linking hair-straightening chemicals to cancer.⁹ Expert discovery closed in early March 2026, and the deadline for defendants to file Daubert motions challenging plaintiffs’ scientific experts was April 1, 2026. First bellwether trials are expected in 2027.¹²

Settlement Status

There have been no settlements, no verdicts, and no payouts.¹ In April 2025, Judge Rowland appointed Ellen K. Reisman as special master to coordinate settlement negotiations. She can order face-to-face negotiations and recommend procedures to the court, but her appointment has not produced a settlement framework.¹³ Observers generally expect meaningful settlement talks to wait until bellwether verdicts establish benchmarks for jury awards.⁴

The Marketing and Racial Targeting Claims

Most plaintiffs are women of color, and the complaints accuse manufacturers of deliberately targeting Black and Brown women through advertising that framed chemically treated products as “safe,” “natural,” “organic,” and “botanicals” in media consumed primarily by those communities.³ The MDL master complaint argues the companies “improperly took advantage of historical racial discrimination,” citing a L’Oréal advertisement that promoted “how beautiful Black hair can be.”¹⁴

Plaintiffs also allege that some defendants developed products for children to build brand loyalty young, identifying L’Oréal’s “Beautiful Beginnings” and Godrej’s “Just For Me” as lines aimed at young Black girls.¹⁵ Lead attorney Ben Crump has characterized the cases as “essentially civil rights issues,” arguing the products reinforced pressure on Black women to conform to European beauty standards.¹⁴

L’Oréal’s Response

L’Oréal denies every allegation. In a November 2023 statement, the company said it is “confident in the safety of SoftSheen-Carson’s products” and that the lawsuits “have neither legal nor scientific merit.” It maintains that its products undergo “rigorous scientific evaluation” and comply with all applicable regulations.¹⁶

In their November 2024 formal answer, L’Oréal USA, L’Oréal USA Products, and SoftSheen-Carson denied that their relaxers are or ever were “defective, toxic or harmful.” They denied targeting women of color or children, denied concealing information or making misrepresentations, and denied causing any plaintiff’s injuries. They did admit to marketing and selling relaxers under the Dark & Lovely, Optimum, and Mizani brand names.¹⁷

On the science, L’Oréal notes that the NIEHS study’s authors themselves described their findings as an association rather than a causal connection and said “more research is warranted,” and that the lead researcher acknowledged “other potential contributing factors” could explain the health outcomes.¹⁶

State Court Cases

Parallel state proceedings are developing in several jurisdictions and may move faster than the federal timeline.

Georgia: The state Supreme Court ruled in October 2025 to reinstate claims involving L’Oréal and Strength of Nature. In one case it found a lower court had improperly weighed expert evidence at a preliminary stage; in another it held the state’s 10-year statute of repose did not bar claims where product use fell within that window.¹⁸
Illinois: About 44 state cases are consolidated in Cook County before Judge Patrick T. Stanton, with cohort trials targeted for late 2026 or early 2027.¹⁹
Philadelphia: The Court of Common Pleas consolidated roughly 25 cases into a mass tort program in June 2025.¹⁹
New York: Two cases are pending in New York County with active motions to dismiss. The New York State Senate also passed Bill S6723 in June 2025, which would require warning labels on relaxers containing carcinogens or reproductive toxicants.²⁰

No trial dates had been set in any state proceeding as of early 2026.¹⁸

The FDA Formaldehyde Rule

The litigation has moved forward alongside a stalled FDA effort to ban formaldehyde in hair relaxers (tracked under Regulation Identifier Number 0910-AI83).²¹ After missing several internal target dates, the rule was further delayed following a Trump administration executive order pausing federal regulations. No final rule has issued as of 2026.²² The regulatory effort does not change the burden of proof for plaintiffs, but legal experts have noted an FDA ban could be used as evidence in court.¹⁴

Benzene in Acne Products

A separate set of lawsuits alleges that L’Oréal’s benzoyl peroxide acne treatments, including CeraVe products and the Effaclar Duo Dual Acne Treatment, degrade over time into benzene, a known carcinogen. The claims stem from 2023 testing by the independent laboratory Valisure, which reported benzene levels up to 1,600 parts per million in some products, far above the FDA’s limit of 2 parts per million.²³ Six class actions were filed between March and May 2024. After a judicial panel declined to centralize them in Hawaii, all six were transferred by May 2025 to the Southern District of New York, where they remain pending.²⁴

Hair Dye and Bladder Cancer

A growing cluster of suits alleges that professional hair dyes sold by L’Oréal and other manufacturers contain aromatic amines linked to bladder cancer in hairdressers and cosmetologists exposed over long careers. Plaintiff Beatrice Singleton, a New York cosmetologist who worked in salons since 1987, was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2022 and sued L’Oréal and other companies in California.²⁵ As of early 2026, 15 such cases are consolidated in Los Angeles Superior Court before Judge Samantha Jessner, with Hector Corvera’s case designated as the lead. L’Oréal and other defendants have challenged the claims as vague and insufficient on product defect causation.²⁶ No trials or settlements have occurred.²⁷

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