A popular celebrity-backed shampoo brand could pay $26 million for allegedly making women go bald
The brand at the center of the lawsuit is Wen Hair Care, which is manufactured and sold by celebrity hair stylist Chaz Dean and Guthy-Renker, the company behind Proactiv and other beauty products.
A federal judge on Monday gave preliminary approval to a $26.3 million settlement for the lawsuit, CBS reports.
According to the terms of the settlement, more than 6 million customers who used the hair product could get rewards of up to $20,000.
More than 200 customers in 40 states have signed on to the class-action lawsuit, which claims that the shampoo - which the company calls a "cleansing conditioner" - causes bald spots, severe hair breakage, scalp irritation, and rashes.
Wen is advertised as "gentle enough to use every day" and it's endorsed by celebrities such as Brooke Shields, Alyssa Milano, and Angie Harmon.
Ads for the shampoo claim: "You can never use too much! The more you use, the better the results."
The lawsuit, filed by the law firm of Christiansen Davis, claims that the product contains harsh chemicals.
"One or more of the products' active ingredients act as a depilatory or caustic agent, either by causing a chemical reaction that damages the hair strand and/or follicle," the lawsuit claims. "The effect of this ingredient(s) render the products dangerous and unsafe for sale as an over-the-counter hair product."
In customer reviews cited in the lawsuit, women described "pulling clumps of hair out of [their] head" and seeing their hair "falling out in gobs daily."
"From what we understand about the product and how it causes hair loss is it contains virtually no cleanser," Amy Davis, an attorney representing customers, told CBS. "It's like using lotion to wash your hair. So instead of removing the product when you rinse it off, it just becomes impacted in your hair follicles."
Wen products have largely positive reviews on Amazon, however. Several varieties of the cleansing conditioners have four or more stars on Amazon, with hundreds of reviews.
Some of the negative reviews mention hair loss and hair thinning.
Wen released this statement: "Wen by Chaz Dean is safe and we continue to provide our hundreds of thousands of customers with the Wen by Chaz Dean products that they know and love. Since the process of litigation is time consuming and costly, we made a business decision to pursue a settlement and put this behind us so that we can focus on delivering quality products."
Here are some photos of alleged hair loss included in the lawsuit:
