Popular and expensive haircare product Olaplex sued for hair breakage and thinning

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This story about Olaplex causing hair loss came out a couple of weeks ago, prior to this lawsuit being filed. When I first saw this story on Buzzfeed, I wasn’t sure I would give up my Olaplex shampoo, conditioner, bond smoother and oil. That stuff costs a lot of money and I have plenty left. My hair has been breaking lately and it’s thinner than usual however. I just assumed that I was going through menopause-related hair loss but now I’m not so sure. Insider interviewed a handful of women who have hair loss and brittleness they associate with Olaplex. Some switched to cheaper hair products and noticed their hair growing back. Dermatologists say that it’s unlikely a topical hair product can cause hair loss, but women experiencing it disagree. Here’s some of both Insider and Buzzfeed’s earlier reports on this as background, with much more on Insider if you’re interested.

Sarah Horrell Richardson battled dry and damaged hair after spending a lifetime curling, straightening, and coloring it for dance competitions. So she was excited to try Olaplex, the TikTok-famous brand that says it can build chemical bonds to repair weakened hair.

But within days of using Olaplex’s Bond Smoother in January 2022, she said her hair began to break in half.

“I would see it all over the counter and my clothes,” she told Insider. She swore off the products after just six uses. “I don’t really have much hair left to lose.”

Richardson is among a number of people claiming in social-media posts and online reviews that Olaplex damaged their hair. The Facebook group “Olaplex Hair Loss/Hair Damage?” is devoted to sharing negative experiences with the brand, and has gained roughly 1,000 members within the past several weeks.

The complaints stand in sharp contrast to thousands of glowing Olaplex reviews from celebrities, influencers, and others that helped supercharge the brand’s recent growth. Olaplex went public in September 2021 at a valuation of more than $15 billion.

Insider interviewed 10 former Olaplex users who voiced concerns about Olaplex on social media and in emails to Insider. Their ages ranged from 26 to 63 years old, from cities across the US and the UK. Some said their hair fell out in “clumps,” or accumulated on sinks and pillows after they had started using the brand’s products. Several said their hair turned dry and straw-like. One said her hairline receded and another said she could see her scalp as her hair thinned. Some feared health problems and sought medical tests. Insider viewed documentation from users such as before-and-after photos, blood-test results, and doctor-visit summaries, as well as correspondence with Olaplex customer service.

Olaplex states its products are third-party tested, and a dermatologist said hair loss from topical treatments was relatively uncommon unless an ingredient caused an allergic reaction. Olaplex has offered refunds for up to 12 months’ worth of products to dissatisfied customers.

“There is so much hair loss now, I’ve never, ever seen in my life so many patients, I see at least 10 patients a day,” Viktoryia Kazlouskaya, a board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist at the University of Pittsburgh, told Insider. “And hair fall from shampoo or oil or products is super rare in general, so I would be very careful claiming that.” – From Insider


Olaplex has been around since 2015, and so the fact that there are all these hair loss complaints is unexpected if it’s something in the formula, Wong said. “The formula hasn’t really changed.”

Wong believes that reports of hair loss from Olaplex and many other hair products over the last few years may be related to the pandemic. Illness and stress, both of which have been at an all-time high, are two known causes of a sudden and temporary hair loss called telogen effluvium. Researchers also found people who had persistent symptoms after COVID were four times as likely to report hair loss than those who had not been infected.

People often interpret a company’s decision to refund some customers as an admission of guilt, but Olaplex has stood behind the science and testing that goes into their formulations. The company told us that when customers aren’t satisfied with a product, they are willing to “explore a possible refund.”

There’s “no evidence that Olaplex products cause hair loss or hair breakage,” according to a spokesperson. “We believe in the safety and efficacy of our products, which are thoroughly tested in-house and by independent third-party laboratories.”

The experts we talked to unanimously agreed that the products alone are probably not making users’ hair fall out, though they did have other ideas about why people think otherwise.

“There isn’t a form of hair loss that occurs from applying a hair product topically once unless you’re allergic to that product,” said Dr. Chesahna Kindred, a board-certified dermatologist who specializes in hair loss. There are no ingredients in Olaplex products that she considers to be markedly different from other products on the market. Her advice to anyone experiencing hair loss is to see a dermatologist to get to the bottom of it. – From Buzzfeed

[From Insider and Buzzfeed]

How is Buzzfeed minimizing this so much! They’re making it sound like no big deal or like user error. I initially thought it might be just covid-related hair loss that people were attributing to their products, similar to people saying Yankee Candles don’t smell because they can’t smell. I’m going to stop using Olaplex after reading that Insider story though. My hair is a lot softer, I haven’t had the brittleness other people mentioned, but at what cost? Is my thinning hair due to Olaplex? Is it possible that all of these women are going through other health problems and just blaming their haircare products? The personal stories in the Insider article convinced me to take a break from Olaplex for now.

After I wrote up this story, I read that Olaplex is being sued by about 30 different users in a class action suit for hair and scalp damage. Some of it has to do with an ingredient, commonly known as lilial, in their No. 3 hair treatment. Lilial has been banned in the EU, and Olaplex says they changed the formula of No. 3 to remove it.

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