Brazilian Blowout drops lawsuit in formaldehyde fiasco
Spokesperson Melanie Mesaros informed CosmeticsDesign.com USA that OSHA had received a notice of dismissal from GIB’s lawyers and that the case had been dropped.
Mesaros also explained that OSHA were currently unaware as to the reason of this action, and CosmeticsDesign.com USA is currently awaiting response from Brazilian Blowout.
‘Incorrect and misleading results’
GIB were originally suing OSHA as it claimed it was producing incorrect and misleading results that were misleading the public and damaging sales of the Brazilian Blowout keratin hair smoothing treatment.
The test results released last year, stated that the hair treatment omitted unsafe levels of harmful gas formaldehyde, which threatened the health of the salon professional who may have to use it throughout the day.
The uproar in the beauty industry that followed led to GIB filing a complaint against OSHA for misrepresentation of Brazilian Blowout's products.
The complaint stated that Oregon OSHA had done irreparable harm to the company and the professional beauty industry, by distributing inaccurate product testing results and using improper testing protocol.
Confusion over substances tested
According to the complaint, the health and safety agency wrongfully issued alerts after claiming to have measured high levels of formaldehyde in product testing of Brazilian Blowout solution, although, according to GIB, they were measuring and reporting concentrations of a different substance, methylene glycol.
“Leading chemists agree that methylene glycol and formaldehyde are very different, both chemically and physically. Methylene glycol is a liquid; formaldehyde is a gas that can be inhaled,” said Mike Brady, CEO of Brazilian Blowout, said in December 2010.
“Yet Oregon OSHA has inaccurately declared that these are 'synonyms' even though these two substances have very different chemical compositions and belong to different chemical families.”