The mascara PFAS lawsuit that named Maybelline and L'Oréal by product got thrown out. Here's why
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit naming six specific Maybelline and L'Oréal mascaras over PFAS - not because they're clean, but because nobody proved those exact products were tested. Here's the ruling, and what's still true.
Emily Harper
Six specific mascaras — four Maybelline, two L'Oréal — were named in a federal class action alleging they contained undisclosed PFAS, the "forever chemicals" that don't break down in the environment. The suit cited a real, peer-reviewed university study as its backing. A federal judge dismissed it anyway, and the reason why is the more useful story: naming a study is not the same thing as testing the product you're suing over.
The six products the lawsuit actually named
Two consolidated cases, Davenport v. L'Oréal USA (filed February 2022) and the related Hicks and Vargas actions in the Southern District of New York, alleged that six specific mascaras were marketed as safe while containing PFAS: L'Oréal Voluminous Waterproof Mascara, L'Oréal Voluminous Lash Paradise Waterproof Mascara, Maybelline Volum' Express the Falsies Waterproof Mascara, Maybelline Volum' Express Total Temptation Waterproof Mascara, Maybelline Great Lash Waterproof Mascara, and Maybelline Total Temptation Waterproof Mascara. The complaint argued L'Oréal's own marketing language — "ophthalmologist and allergy tested," "suitable for sensitive eyes" — became misleading once PFAS was in the formula.
Why a judge threw it out
On September 30, 2023, the Southern District of New York granted L'Oréal's motion to dismiss. The court's reasoning is the actual lesson here: the plaintiffs' own citation, the 2021 University of Notre Dame fluorine study, never tested an L'Oréal or Maybelline product by name — it screened 231 cosmetics for a chemical marker, not these six SKUs specifically. The ruling noted the complaint didn't say how many samples were tested or whether every sample came back positive. Without a lab result tying PFAS to the exact tube on the exact shelf, the court found the plaintiffs hadn't shown standing to sue. The case was dismissed without prejudice, with leave to amend — a door left open, not a finding that the mascaras are PFAS-free. Two related filings, Davenport in California and Vega v. L'Oréal in New Jersey, were voluntarily dismissed before ever reaching that question.
None of this means the underlying Notre Dame research was wrong — the study still found high fluorine levels in 56% of foundations and eye products and 82% of waterproof mascaras it screened, and its authors never claimed to have tested these six products. It means the specific legal claim that these six mascaras contain PFAS was never proven in court, on either side.
Chanel's talc case, and how much thinner it is
A separate, unrelated suit accuses Chanel of a different chemical, in a different product category. A New York state court filing alleges a woman's mesothelioma diagnosis traces back to 30 years of using Chanel's after-bath talc powder, from 1961 to 1991. The complaint argues Chanel should have known, pointing to general research from the 1930s onward showing talc could carry asbestos contamination. What the publicly available filing does not include is any internal Chanel memo, test result, or document showing the company actually knew about its own products — the claim rests on industry-wide historical knowledge, not company-specific evidence. It's a real, pending case; it's also a meaningfully weaker one than the mascara suit was before its own dismissal, because it never had a lab result to point to in the first place. For scale, talc-asbestos exposure was alleged in 40% of all mesothelioma lawsuits filed in 2025, so a case like this one is part of a much larger wave, not an isolated allegation.
The investigation that didn't turn into a lawsuit at all
Not every PFAS scare gets this far. Consumer attorneys opened an investigation into whether Billie's Wonder Wipes and MAC's Gently Off Wipes contained PFAS after the products were marketed with "clean" and "safe" language. That investigation is now closed. No test results were published, no lawsuit was filed, and no settlement was reached. It's the same starting point as the mascara case — a "clean" claim and a suspicion — but it never cleared the bar of an actual filing, let alone a lab result.
How to actually read this
- A study and a lawsuit are not the same evidence, and neither one is a product test. The Notre Dame study measured fluorine across 231 products as a category; it was never a test of these six mascaras, and the court said so directly.
- "Dismissed" is not "disproven." The mascara case was dismissed for a specific, narrow reason — lack of proof tied to the named products — with the door left open to refile. That's different from a court or a lab finding the products PFAS-free.
- An open investigation is the weakest form of this evidence, not the strongest. The MAC and Billie wipes matter never became a lawsuit at all. If you only see "attorneys are investigating," there may be nothing underneath it yet.
- Company-level allegations (talc, asbestos, PFAS) still turn on product-level proof. The Chanel case is real but currently rests on historical industry knowledge, not a documented test of a Chanel product — worth knowing before treating it the same as a case with lab data behind it.
This is exactly the gap Tallow was built to close on the food side: a documented lab result you can check yourself, not a headline about a lawsuit that may or may not hold up. See what's actually been lab-tested before you decide what to trust on the label.
Figures and facts in this post are sourced from court filings, the cited class-action reporting, the peer-reviewed Notre Dame study, and litigation-tracking coverage linked above, current as of the time of writing. This is not medical or legal advice.