According to a recent article in Ad Age, consumers are suing L’Oreal for false advertising. The nature of the misleading advertisement is that their Fructis shampoos and conditioners can make your hair 5 times stronger. See the post we recently did on how companies measure hair strength.
Looks like a few consumers really didn’t notice any difference in hair strength. It’s not surprising. What is surprising is that this is a real court case. This Brain can’t help but think this is a waste of the American taxpayer’s money and court time. Who is really harmed by these claims? And who wants hair that is 5 times stronger? Would you really want your hair to be as strong as steel?
Puffery the Magic Dragon
An interesting aspect of this story is the notion of a “puffery” claim. These are claims that are non-specific and aren’t supposed to mean anything substantial. For example, hypoallergenic, healthy hair, beautiful hair. We discussed these types of claims previously in a post on whether you could trust cosmetic companies. Here’s a surprise, while you can absolutely trust the quality of the cosmetic products you buy, you mostly can’t trust the advertising of cosmetic companies.
Why? Because the differences between the best technologies is so small, average consumers can’t really notice. If you tried Pantene, Fructis, Dove, Matrix, and Paul Mitchel shampoos but you didn’t know which one was which from the bottle or the product’s fragrance, you would be hard pressed to tell any difference. They will all work. So, to make themselves stand out, companies have to come up with these wild claims to make consumers pick their product over someone else’s.
Prove it all night
Certainly, L’Oreal will be able to prove that they are not lying when they say they are making hair 5 times stronger. They’ve developed some lab test that will support their claim. But here’s a secret, all those other brands could run the same test to show that their products will make hair stronger. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how the business works.
Incidentally, if you or a loved one has suffered damages because you believed L’Oreal when they told you that your hair was going to be 5 times stronger, this legal firm is willing to take you on as a client. Ya gotta love America.
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Maybe the hair strength claim wasn’t the best case, but I believe that companies should not be able to prey on the fact that everyone doesn’t know what y’all know. Plenty of people believe all the botanical and pseudoscientific claim “puffery” is gospel–plenty of celebrity dermatologists are quoted in articles supporting this. My dad is a chemist, so I have a healthy respect for the science of beauty, and it’s still awfully hard to figure out what’s really useful and what’s just puffery….especially before I found your blog!
I think having a diamond that will last forever made from a child’s hair, etc. a pet someone loved would be a great idea. Good luck to them. I am going to see if I can find the website you mentioned and hope that they can make diamond I can afford.
I disagree about your comment on how removing the scent would make us unable to detect which product is which. Perhaps they are really similar, but each hair product reacts differently to different hair.
Fructis, very shockingly, is one of the best shampoos for my hair. Pantene makes my otherwise completely grease-free hair to break out by the end of the day! I have always wondered what small differences in the product could do this! Maybe it’s the particular products within each brand that I have tried?
I agree, maybe without the smell I wouldn’t be able to tell which product was which exactly. But I would be able to tell which gives my (curly) hair the nice slip that I want, and which not so much. For example, John Frieda conditioner for straightening curls and conditioner for enhancing curls both feel nice. But when I rinse their purple colored conditioner for blonde hair, my hair is tangled as if I wasn’t using any conditioner in at all!
Not to mention some have different enough ingrediants that you can be allergic to one. And it’s not always the fragrance! I’m allergic to wheat, can’t eat it, can’t use shampoos with wheat proteins in it.
I’m smart enough to know that hair, being dead, can’t be made stronger from the outside. Though I suppose you can put enough moisture into it that it doesn’t break as easily.
Come on. If “nobody is hurt by these claims,” then why not say anything damn thing you want? That’s a morally spineless position to take.
I usually visit this site when researching the efficacy of product before splurging on it. Previous posts have regularly provided sensible and factual advice, often debunking the hyped-up claims made by cosmetic
companies about the virtues of their products. Unfortunately, the present post, which appears to support the exaggerated claims made by L’oreal, seems to be completely at odds with the aims of this website. It may indeed be true that “no one is hurt by these claims”, but nevertheless, it is undeniable that the statement “five times stronger” is what drives the sales. Therefore, if that statement is proven false, then the consumer is right to sue the company. I would be curious
to know what tests L’oreal can produce to substantiate their claim, irrespective of the type and condition of hair. Finally, there are some of us who would like our hair to be as strong as, or even stronger, than steel fibres of comparable cross-section. That would be much less breakage, for one thing, and fewer split ends, for another.
How about changing your website name to:
thebeautywithnobrains.com
I recently read that Loreal is being sued in Sweden for making false and misleading claims regarding one of their skin care products, I believe. This was reported in a reputable trade magazine. In fact the FTC has recently made their advertising regulations even tougher. In my opinion, the cosmetic claims that some companies make are outrageous and it is difficult to believe that they have thus far been abe to get away with it. One company is now saying that their face cream can alter the skin’s DNA.
I personally hired a compliance lawyer to go over each and every claim I have on my product packaging…so, to even state, “makes hair 5X stronger,” I feel is very misleading…not harmful to one’s body, but certainly misleading unless they have conclusive studies to back it up. A person may spend their hard earned money based on this “supposed” claim that their poor thinning hair will now becomes 5 times thicker, when in reality it may not.
Is there any honest Lóreal add? At least in what is related to haircare? Don’t think so….