Over the past year, Celebrity hairstylist and founder of Wen Hair Care, Chaz Dean, has endured a legal battle arising over allegations that his company’s Wen products caused adverse side effects including hair loss, scalp rashes, irritation and hair breakage.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Amy Davis said in a statement to CBS, “from what we understand about the product and how it causes hair loss is it contains virtually no cleanser. 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 follicle.”
When the Food and Drug Administration first investigated consumer complaints in July, there were just over 200 registered complaints with the agency. Upon investigation, it was reported that Wen itself received over 21,000 complaints concerning the product.
A Los Angeles federal judge recently preliminarily approved a $26.3 million settlement among the stylist, the brand’s marketing company, Guthy-Renker, and the class of plaintiffs. However, the settlement must obtain final approval by U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright II. Should the case ultimately settle, it would entitle six million consumers to a possible award of $20,000.
Wen continues to defend the product, saying, “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.”
This case is: Friedman et al. v. Guthy-Renker LLC and Wen By Chaz Dean, Inc., Case No. 2:14-cv-06009-ODW-AGR
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