Arizona sues L’Oréal over alleged concealment of hair-relaxer cancer risks

A state enters the hair-relaxer litigation

Arizona has sued French cosmetics group L’Oréal, alleging that the company marketed chemical hair relaxers without warning consumers about claimed links to ovarian and uterine cancers. Attorney General Kris Mayes filed the case in state court on September 10, making Arizona the first US state to bring this type of action over hair-relaxer cancer risks. The complaint invokes state consumer-protection law and concerns products used predominantly by Black women.

The state is seeking civil penalties and damages, along with a court order preventing continued sales unless the products carry a cancer-risk warning. Arizona alleges that L’Oréal and associated companies concealed evidence while marketing relaxers to women and children. Those are allegations that must be tested in court, not findings of liability. L’Oréal has previously said its products undergo rigorous safety reviews and that claims linking them to cancer lack legal and scientific merit.

The evidence dispute behind the case

Private litigation accelerated after a 2022 US National Institutes of Health study found that women who frequently used chemical hair-straightening products had more than twice the uterine-cancer risk of women who did not use them. The finding was an association in an observational study; it did not establish that every product or ingredient caused an individual cancer. The Arizona case will therefore turn on what the company knew, what it communicated and whether its marketing complied with state law.

More than 12,000 related claims by users or their families have been consolidated in federal multidistrict litigation in Chicago, where early trials could begin next year. That process includes L’Oréal, Revlon and other manufacturers. Arizona’s lawsuit is separate and adds a public-enforcement track to the private claims. A state victory could influence warning practices and enforcement elsewhere even if the federal cases produce differing results about particular products or plaintiffs.

A wider regulatory question

Concern over cosmetic-product oversight extends beyond the United States. Britain’s Office for Product Safety and Standards said in July that a parliamentary inquiry was examining beauty-product regulation, explicitly including hair relaxers, and described a notification system used to identify prohibited ingredients. The UK process does not validate Arizona’s allegations, but it shows that regulators are reviewing how evidence and enforcement protect consumers. Key next steps are L’Oréal’s formal response, any request to dismiss the Arizona case and the scheduling of federal bellwether trials.