The Hair Relaxer Lawsuits Have Quietly Grown Into One of the Largest Mass Torts in U.S. History

You can still find boxes of chemical hair relaxers stacked in familiar rows, their packaging bright and comforting, in practically any pharmacy in the American South or beauty supply store in Newark or Chicago’s South Side. Lovely and dark. ideal.

Nature’s Creme. For many years, millions of Black households nationwide relied on these products as a Saturday morning ritual. The protective gloves, the cautious timing, and the chemical odor are all components of a very private routine. It’s difficult to watch it now without being affected by the lessons we’ve learned since.

Field	Details
Case Name	MDL 3060 — In re: Hair Relaxer Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation
Presiding Judge	Judge Mary Rowland, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Consolidated	2023 — Northern District of Illinois
Total Plaintiffs (April 2026)	11,371 plaintiffs — 3rd largest MDL in the U.S. Active
Primary Health Claims	Uterine cancer (endometrial carcinoma, leiomyosarcoma), ovarian cancer, uterine fibroids
Key Scientific Foundation	2022 NIH Sister Study — frequent users showed a 2.55× increased risk of uterine cancer
Major Defendants	L’Oréal USA, Revlon, SoftSheen-Carson, and other major beauty manufacturers
Harmful Chemicals Identified	Parabens, phthalates, formaldehyde, bisphenol-A, sodium hydroxide (lye)
Estimated Settlement Range	$100,000 – $1,500,000 per plaintiff (trial projections up to $7.5M for severe cases)
Bellwether Trials	Projected late 2025 through 2026; Judge Rowland selected 10 representative cases
Statute of Limitations	Varies by state; typically runs from diagnosis or discovery of injury
Primary Demographic Affected	Black and African American women who used chemical relaxers regularly for 4+ years

Because of the seriousness of what we have discovered. Women who regularly used chemical hair relaxers had a 2.55 times higher risk of developing uterine cancer than those who did not, according to a groundbreaking 2022 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study was based on over 33,000 women who were tracked over a decade through the NIH’s Sister Study. That is not a small statistical push. That’s a discovery that transforms everything. One of the biggest mass tort cases in American legal history is currently being supported by the scientific spine.

MDL 3060, a federal multidistrict lawsuit consolidating hair relaxer cases in the Northern District of Illinois under Judge Mary Rowland, has 11,371 plaintiffs as of April 2026. At the moment, it is the third-biggest MDL in the whole nation. That figure continues to rise. However, there’s still an odd silence surrounding it, as if the general public hasn’t realized how important this lawsuit has grown.

Perhaps it’s because the most impacted women, Black women who have trusted products marketed to them for generations, have all too frequently been the last to learn that something has been done to them.

When you sit with the science, it is truly damning. Endocrine-disrupting substances found in chemical hair relaxers include formaldehyde, phthalates, parabens, and bisphenol-A. These are not traces of pollutants. These are manufacturing byproducts or functional ingredients that directly disrupt the hormonal systems of the body.

They are absorbed through the scalp; sometimes they are applied to scalps that have already been scraped or irritated by a previous relaxer session, which only speeds up absorption. The endocrine system, which controls everything from reproduction to metabolism, suffers. Repeated exposure has been associated with fibroids, ovarian cancer, and uterine cancer. The mechanism is no longer theoretical. It is recorded, subjected to peer review, and referenced in court documents.

The defendants are big, well-funded businesses with seasoned legal teams, including L’Oréal, Revlon, SoftSheen-Carson, and others. Anyone who has followed mass tort litigation is familiar with their approach, which includes highlighting alternative risk factors, challenging causality, and questioning the applicability of population-level studies to individual plaintiffs.

The roundup herbicide battles, the asbestos lawsuits, and the talc-ovarian cancer cases all use the same strategy. When the science is this strong, it seldom works. And the science is sound in this case.

Judge Rowland has taken a methodical approach. Instead of letting the parties choose the bellwether, she has taken direct control of the process in recent months by personally selecting ten representative cases. The action was intentional.

Cases with overlapping talc claims, plaintiffs with multiple cancer diagnoses, and cases involving memory problems or other complications that could divert a jury’s attention from the main question—did these products cause reproductive cancer, and if so, what are they worth—were all excluded. She wants juries to be attentive. Instead of fact-specific verdicts that both parties dismiss, she wants verdicts that can actually advance settlement talks.

The motions that will decide which expert witnesses are permitted to testify, known as the Daubert battles, are about to take place. The actual leverage of the litigation will be determined during these hearings. Ten scientific experts are on the plaintiffs’ side.

Defendants will have one hundred pages to contest them. The story going into trial is controlled by whoever makes it through that stage. Even one significant bellwether verdict has the potential to completely change the course of the case in favor of settlement in a matter of months. This kind of mass tort has previously occurred.

Separately, in late March 2026, a group of plaintiffs—former relaxer users with elevated long-term risk but no cancer diagnosis—filed motions for class certification for medical monitoring claims. This opens up a whole new front in the lawsuit if it is certified.

Companies may eventually have to pay for the screening expenses of millions of women who used their products and are now waiting to find out what happened to them, in addition to the harm they have caused. That is an amazing potential risk.

As we watch this play out, there’s a sense that we are in the midst of a situation that legal historians will eventually examine in the same way that they examine asbestos or tobacco: a situation where the discrepancy between what businesses knew and what they told customers was enormous, significant, and ultimately impossible to conceal.

One of the biggest mass torts in American history has quietly grown out of the hair relaxer lawsuits. Perhaps the key word is quiet. Because far too many women who have experienced harm are still unaware that they have a case. The gap in awareness is closing. It must.