Arizona's L'Oréal Suit Takes a Faster Legal Route Than the Federal Cancer Litigation

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued L'Oréal USA and its SoftSheen-Carson brand in state court this month, accusing the companies of concealing cancer risks tied to Dark and Lovely, Optimum and Mizani relaxers. The case is built on the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act, a deceptive-advertising statute, rather than the personal-injury theory driving roughly 11,877 private lawsuits now consolidated before Judge Mary Rowland in the Northern District of Illinois.

That distinction matters more than the headline suggests. The federal cases must prove the relaxers actually caused specific women's uterine cancers, a fight now centered on general-causation Daubert motions due this fall. Arizona only has to show L'Oréal knew of a risk and failed to disclose it, a lower bar that could let the state reach a verdict, or a settlement, well before any federal bellwether trial happens in 2027.

The science behind both efforts is the same and it remains association, not proof. A 2022 NIH Sister Study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute followed roughly 33,000 women for eleven years and found frequent straightener users, about 60% of them Black, faced roughly double the uterine cancer risk of infrequent users, an estimated 4.05% versus 1.64% by age 70. A 2023 Boston University Black Women's Health Study found a similar pattern among postmenopausal Black women using relaxers twice a year or more. Neither study names a single culprit chemical; suspected agents include phthalates, parabens and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives. L'Oréal maintains its products are safe and says the NIH research found no causal link, noting a lead researcher on that study acknowledged other factors weren't ruled out.

Arizona's suit is also filling a gap federal regulators left open. The FDA proposed banning formaldehyde-releasing chemicals in hair-smoothing products in 2023 and has pushed the deadline back five times, most recently past December 31, 2025, with no new date set. Arizona's remedies would force L'Oréal to add explicit cancer warnings or pull the products from shelves, the kind of mandate the FDA has yet to issue nationally. Mayes' office is working with DiCello Levitt, a mass-tort firm retained on contingency, a arrangement Arizona has also used pursuing insulin makers and RealPage. Whether that model of AGs deputizing plaintiffs' firms spreads to other states may end up mattering as much as the verdict itself.