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In December 2020, we received multiple inquiries from Snopes readers asking us to examine the accuracy of reports and social media posts that claimed users of two variants of TRESemmé shampoo had filed a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturer, Unilever, over the alleged inclusion of an ingredient that causes hair loss. On Dec. 3, Facebook user Shevelle Finney recounted her alleged experience of hair loss in a post that was shared more than 250,000 times. She wrote: Internet users also inquired about a Nov. 17 article on the website ClassAction.org, that reported the following: The website TopClassActions.com published a similar article. Setting aside Finney's descriptions of her own personal experience, which we're not in a position to assess, those accounts were accurate in their descriptions of the lawsuit in question. On Nov. 16, 2020, Illinois woman Emily Castillo filed a lawsuit against Unilever USA and its subsidiary Conopco, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, on behalf of herself and other similarly situated consumers. In her complaint, Castillo alleged that: As a result, Castillo argued, the defendants had committed consumer fraud, breach of warranty, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment. According to her complaint, the number of would-be participants in the class action lawsuit could be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, and she asked the court to order a recall of the products, as well as to instruct Unilever and Conopco to pay unspecified amounts in restitution, damages, attorneys' fees and other costs. Unilever has not yet filed a response to the allegations contained in the complaint, and has until February 2021 to do so. Snopes invited the company to answer Castillo's allegations, but we did not receive any reply in time for publication. In her widely-shared Facebook post, Finney included a photograph of a bottle of TRESemmé Moisture Rich conditioner. It's not clear whether that photograph was for illustration purposes only, or indicates that it is the only TRESemmé product she uses, and therefore one which she alleges caused her hair to fall out. (The text of Finney's post referred to TRESemmé shampoo, but the photograph showed a bottle of conditioner.) That particular conditioner does contain DMDM hydantoin, the ingredient at the center of Castillo's lawsuit, but it is not one of the two specific TRESemmé shampoo variants cited in the complaint.
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