What Legal Recourse Do Those Exposed to Formaldehyde-Laden Hair Products Have?

In recent years, hair-straightening technologies have significantly progressed, largely due to several new lines of keratin-smoothing treatments. Perhaps the most lauded and popular of them, the Brazilian Blowout left customers’ frizzy or curly locks smooth and lustrous; however, it may have also exposed them to the dangerous gas formaldehyde. Studies by the Occupational Safety and Health Division in Oregon revealed that the formula is eight percent formaldehyde, prompting authorities there to issue warnings to salon owners and stylists and a series of legal actions in California, where the product is produced, explains a California personal injury lawyer. If a judge rules that the company violated multiple state laws by selling the formaldehyde-laden product, what legal recourse do consumers who were unwittingly exposed to the gas and its personally injurious health effects have?

Exposure to formaldehyde has both short- and long-term health consequences. Immediate responses to the gas include burning sensations in the eyes, nose, and throat, coughing, wheezing, nausea, and skin irritation. Headaches, depression, insomnia, and memory impairment are among the long-term effects. In addition, studies have linked formaldehyde to nasal cancer and leukemia, leading several agencies and organizations to classify it as carcinogenic, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the National Toxicology Program, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The company that produced the hair product for the Brazilian Blowout treatment, the Acai Professional Smoothing Solution, marketed it as “formaldehyde free” and “salon safe.” However, researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University’s Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology found that the product contained levels of formaldehyde ranging from 6.3 percent to 10.6 percent, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Last November, the office of the Attorney General of California, Edmund G. Brown Jr., filed a lawsuit against the company on the grounds that it had violated Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. The law requires that companies exposing consumers to products containing chemicals the state has found to be carcinogenic must notify them first. In the lawsuit, the company was also accused of violating multiple sections of the Business and Professions Code, the Safe Cosmetics Act, and the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law.

If the company is found to be in violation of Proposition 65, it will not only be forced to comply with the California law but it may also be subject to personal injury lawsuits for violating its duty to notify consumers of a dangerous ingredient in its product, explains a California personal injury lawyer. Consumers who pursue lawsuits against the company will have the burden of proving that exposure to the formaldehyde gas from the hair treatment was a direct, foreseeable, and proximate cause of the pain or injurious effects they suffered.