On September 30, 2023, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a putative class action in which plaintiffs claimed they would not have purchased or paid a premium price for certain waterproof mascaras had they known of the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”).
In a 22-page opinion, the court held that plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege that the mascaras they individually purchased actually contained PFAS, or that there was a material risk that they did; thus, plaintiffs could not establish an actual injury.
The court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims under Sections 349-50 of New York’s General Business Law, as well as a host of other state consumer protection laws, and common law claims for unjust enrichment, breach of express and implied warrant, and fraudulent concealment.
Notably, the court rejected plaintiffs’ attempts to establish actual injury by relying on a 2021 study conducted by researchers at the University of Notre Dame, which screened 231 cosmetic products, including lip products, eye products, foundations, face products, mascaras, concealers, and eyebrow products, for their total fluorine levels to identify the possible presence of PFAS, as well as specially commissioned third party analysis of the waterproof mascaras purchased by plaintiffs.
The court concluded that the mascaras purchased by plaintiffs weren’t analyzed 
in the Notre Dame Study; moreover, the court identified “glaring shortcomings” with plaintiff’s’ third party analysis, noting that the study “does not allege, for instance, how many products were tested … whether all those tested products revealed the presence of PFAS, and if not, what percentage of the products had PFAS.”
Although plaintiffs are seeking to amend their complaint to revive their claims, the takeaway here is, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2207 (2021), absent an actual injury, plaintiffs will not have standing to pursue class action claims.
It’s important to note that hovering in the background of cosmetics-related PFAS litigation is the recent Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (“MoCRA”), which overhauled federal regulation of cosmetics in the United States. Among its many new rulemaking requirements, MoCRA requires FDA to publish a report no later than 2025 assessing the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in cosmetics and safety risks associated with such use. It remains to be seen what effect FDA’s report will have on putative PFAS class actions in the beauty and wellness space, and what, if any, defenses cosmetics companies can assert based on FDA’s analysis.
The case is Zaida Hicks, et al. v. L’Oréal USA Inc., No. 22-1989, (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2023).