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The plates on the BaByliss Pro Porcelain Ceramic Straightening Iron we tested didn’t touch, making it hard to straighten hair. Speak with an attorney who is experienced in MDLs and mass tort lawsuits to find out what the statute of limitations is in your case. Although it may seem like a cut-and-dry fact, multiple factors can affect the statute of limitations for your own case. The only way to find out how it applies to you is by speaking with an attorney. In 2023, all open cases were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation or MDL. In this type of lawsuit, the plaintiffs share much of the pretrial activities, such as discovery, but each case receives its own verdict.
How much does it cost to join the hair straightener cancer lawsuit?
She’s also learned to distrust the temperature settings on inexpensive devices. “They get hot so quickly that they must be hotter than the guide is telling me they are,” she said. Our panel testers were not aware of the prices on any of the flat irons they tried. After the initial round of testing, our testers’ favorite models were the priciest ones.
A budget flat iron
We found that straighteners with ceramic plates held heat just as well as the models with titanium plates. The lower-cost Conair InfinitiPro Tourmaline Ceramic Flat Iron is very lightweight—0.51 pound—and clamping the plates together doesn’t require a lot of muscle. We tested the 1-inch-wide model with a purple casing, but Conair makes this flat iron in three sizes and seven colors, so it’s easy to find one that suits your needs. That is bad, obviously, and largely irreversible—frizzy and crunchy went out of style in the ’80s. The problem is that the maximum temperatures that hair can endure before developing damage varies by hair type and, really, by individual. “It really just depends on your particular hair and the way that you use the flat iron,” said cosmetic chemist Perry Romanowski.
13 Best Flat Irons for Natural Hair - Best Natural Hair Straighteners 2021 - Prevention Magazine
13 Best Flat Irons for Natural Hair - Best Natural Hair Straighteners 2021.
Posted: Tue, 23 Nov 2021 08:00:00 GMT [source]
You Must Be Within the Statute of Limitations
We’re also considering low- and no-heat straightening tools, such as Annie’s Classic Foam Rollers, Caruso’s Molecular Steam Hairsetter, and Remington’s Condition Hair Setter. The Rusk W8less has a manual dial that goes to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, the same max temperature as on the GVP. Besides the temperature dial and the on/off switch, there are no other buttons on this flat iron. The temperature dial goes from 1 to 50, which correspond to 10-degree increments between 240 °F and 450 °F.
The Lightweight Rusk W8less Beats All the Pricey Hair Dryers I’ve Tried. And It’s Under $100.
With practice, you can figure out the ideal temperature for your hair and how to best maneuver the tool to create the style you want, but it’s best to take things low and slow at first. We spoke with Trefor Evans, the director of research at TRI Princeton, a hair testing and consulting firm; cosmetic chemist Perry Romanowski; and stylist Tippi Shorter, Aveda’s global artistic director for textured hair. We read research papers on heat damage, blog posts about hair destroyed by hair straighteners, plus hundreds of customer reviews of various flat irons. Like our runner-up pick, the Rusk W8less, this straightener has a temperature dial, which goes from 165 °F up to 455 °F in 10-degree increments. At 14 inches, the InfinitiPro iron is slightly longer than our pick, the GVP Ceramic Titanium Digital Flat Iron, which in our experience made it a little unwieldy when styling.
Diagnosed With Cancer After Using Chemical Hair Straighteners?
The GVP is still light enough to hold on a daily basis, and the iron’s other features, such as quality plates and a digital display, compensate for the added weight. The cord is 9 feet long, giving you plenty of space to plug it into an outlet that is located far away from a mirror. The straightener itself is 13 inches long, which we found to be the perfect length to wield while styling hair—and the plates are around 3.5 inches long, plenty sufficient to capture a good-size section of hair. It’s unlikely that using chemical hair straighteners once or twice will cause cancer. The plaintiffs with the highest chance of success in this sort of case will be people who used these products frequently over a long period of time.
Cosmetic chemist Perry Romanowski has tested straighteners on hair dyed in a range of colors and found that high heat from straightening can change color noticeably for blondes or redheads. “A brown color won’t be as noticeable if there’s a change typically,” he said. If our pick is unavailable, we recommend the Rusk W8less Professional Ceramic and Tourmaline Str8 Iron. It was the third-lightest flat iron we tested at 0.50 pound, but its slim plates get just as hot as those of the GVP, and the cord is the same length. The smaller design of this straightener makes it great for curling or flipping hair.
The statute of limitations refers to how long you have to bring a lawsuit after you have been injured. In MDLs, the statute of limitations generally corresponds with the place where the injury occurred or the place where the lawsuit was initially filed. When someone chooses a beauty product or treatment, their worst fear may be that the treatment won’t work or won’t look the way they intended it to. Conair sells products in over 100 countries and has offices and subsidiaries in over 12 countries including Babyliss SARL in Paris, France. The company also manufactures a wide range of home kitchen appliances under its brands Cuisinart and Waring.
Less expensive, more unwieldy: Conair InfinitiPro Tourmaline Ceramic Flat Iron
Anyone can use a flat iron, but how well a particular iron will work on your hair—how straight your hair will get, how long it will stay that way, and how much damage it will endure from the heat—depends on a variety of factors. The curlier or more textured your hair, the more heat, time, or styling products you may need to invest to get the style you want; the finer your hair, the more easily it may be damaged by high temperatures. If you live in a humid climate, your hair will reabsorb water more quickly, which restores its natural (less straight) shape.
Studies have shown that people who use these products four or more times a year have a greater chance of developing reproductive cancer. Most of the irons we tested were equipped with a dial to change the temperature instead of a digital display. Per all our experts’ advice, figuring out the right temperature to get your hair straight in as close to a single fluid pass is crucial to helping it maintain its health. The GVP’s display will best allow you to figure out the right temperature and use it consistently.
If hair regularly gets snagged or otherwise caught on the device, you’re forced to apply more heat on those areas to fix them. The GVP Ceramic Titanium Digital Flat Iron’s temperature range is as wide as that of the competition, and its plates are big enough to grab a strand of hair without being too big to maneuver. It heats up as quickly and is about as light as the rest of the straighteners we tried, and the casing never snagged our hair. The 9-foot-long cord means you won’t have to lurk near a power outlet, and its auto-shutoff feature keeps your home and belongings safe.
However, evidence seems to point to the fact that people who have used chemical hair straighteners or hair relaxers have a higher risk of developing some cancers. There is currently an active mass tort lawsuit with over 8,000 plaintiffs against manufacturers of these products. If you’ve been harmed by a hair straightener or relaxer, you may be eligible to join the lawsuit. We’re testing our current picks against a new group of hair straighteners. We’re testing flat irons from BaBylissPro, GHD, and Paul Mitchell, mini flat irons from Amika and BaBylissPro, and straightening brushes from Amika, Dafni, and Tymo, as well as hot combs from Andis and Gold N Hot.
We tested the straighteners on three friends’ hair to see how they worked on different hair textures. Romanowski advises going up to at least 300 degrees to get the job done. Try temperatures above 400 degrees only if you find that you have to do multiple passes on strands of hair. Again, the goal is to limit the amount of time that you use a straightener on your hair. One quick pass at a high temperature is better than multiple slightly cooler passes.
However, one advantage to a longer straightener is that it can straighten wider sections of hair at once, which can save time. The Rusk W8less Professional Ceramic and Tourmaline Str8 Iron is around the same price as our pick, the GVP Ceramic Titanium Digital Flat Iron, but it offers a lighter and more compact design. At half a pound, it was among the lightest straighteners we tested (the lightest was Rusk’s Deepshine, at 0.44 pound).
The Rusk W8less was one of the easiest flat irons to hold for long periods of time. Finally, nearly all high-temperature flat irons—those reaching 450 °F—advertise this fact as if it’s a good thing. All three of our experts (stylist, cosmetic chemist, and research consultant) agree that going above 400 °F will damage hair, it’s just a matter of degree depending on your hair thickness and texture. Still, as we noted above, using a slightly hotter temperature in favor of being able to work quickly may help minimize damage, versus applying lower amounts of heat for more time. The plates on the Conair Infiniti Pro flat iron grip and style hair just as well as the high-end straighteners, plus you’ll have a very wide range of temperature settings, but it has a short cord. It is not too late to join the chemical hair straightener lawsuit, assuming that you are within the statute of limitations.
