L’Oréal: toxic hair relaxers
L'Oreal USA's presence on the chemical hair relaxer market is mainly due to SoftSheen-Carson, which now is a division of L'Oreal USA and a leader in the ethnic hair care industry. The Chicago-based SoftSheen was founded in 1964 by an African-American couple and sold to L'Oreal in 1998. In 2000, L'Oreal USA acquired Carson Products, another ethnic hair care products manufacturer, and merged the two companies into SoftSheen-Carson. In 2021 campaign group Level Up launched a petition calling on L'Oréal to remove toxic ingredients from the chemical hair straightening products. On 21 October 2022, Jenny Mitchell filed a hair relaxer lawsuit against L'Oréal, claiming their hair relaxer products marketed to Black women have led to the development of her uterine cancer.
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