If you live in Texas and developed uterine, endometrial, or ovarian cancer after years of using chemical hair straighteners, you can join the Texas hair relaxer lawsuit by filing in the federal multidistrict litigation in Chicago, where every U.S. case has been consolidated. Texas’s two-year personal injury deadline applies, but under the state’s discovery rule, that clock generally starts when you were diagnosed with cancer, not when you last used the product. As of mid-2026, more than 11,500 claims are pending, no settlements have been reached, and the first trials are expected in 2027.
Who Qualifies to File
The litigation is built around women diagnosed with uterine cancer (including endometrial cancer) or ovarian cancer after regular, long-term use of chemical hair relaxers. The scientific studies behind the claims looked at women who used these products four or more times a year over a span of years, and that usage pattern is what plaintiffs’ attorneys are generally looking for.
To support a claim, you need two kinds of proof. The first is medical: records confirming a qualifying cancer diagnosis. The second is product history: receipts, salon records, photographs, or your own detailed testimony identifying which brands you used and for how long. The more specific the product identification, the stronger the claim.
Some cases face extra hurdles. The court has excluded certain cases from the bellwether trial pool, including those involving overlapping talc litigation, multiple cancer diagnoses, or plaintiffs with memory impairments. Those exclusions apply to trial selection, not to whether you can file in the first place.
The Texas Deadline You Cannot Miss
Texas gives you two years to file a personal injury or product liability claim. That deadline is strictly enforced, and missing it hands the defendant an absolute defense.
The question is when the two years start. The clock normally runs from the date of injury, but Texas courts recognize a discovery rule for harms that were not immediately apparent. Cancer caused by chemical exposure years earlier fits that description, so the two-year window likely runs from the date you were diagnosed rather than the date you last used a relaxer. If the person who was harmed is a minor, the deadline does not begin until she turns 18.
Because the discovery rule’s application depends on your specific facts, confirm your personal deadline with a lawyer before you assume you still have time. Texas judges enforce these cutoffs strictly, and a day late is a dismissed case.
How and Where to File from Texas
Texas does not run a separate state-court program for hair relaxer cases. Claims filed by Texas residents are routed into federal multidistrict litigation MDL No. 3060, In re: Hair Relaxer Marketing Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago. All pretrial proceedings happen there. Attorneys who have appeared in any transferor court can participate without separate admission to the Illinois bar, so you do not need to hire counsel licensed in Illinois.
Several Texas lawyers already sit on the plaintiffs’ steering committee coordinating strategy in the MDL, including Mikal Watts of Watts Guerra and Buffy Martines of Laminack, Pirtle & Martines.
Filing a case involves two main documents. The first is a Short Form Complaint, a streamlined pleading the court approved in August 2023 that lets individual plaintiffs join the MDL without drafting a full complaint from scratch. The second is a detailed Plaintiff Fact Sheet, submitted with your medical records, product identification, and usage history. The fact sheet is where cases live or die on paperwork. In December 2024, Judge Mary Rowland ordered defendants to notify plaintiffs of any deficiencies in their submissions, but starting in September 2025 she also began dismissing inactive and noncompliant cases under Case Management Order No. 9. Missing information or missed deadlines on the fact sheet can end a case before it is ever heard.
Which Products and Companies Are Named
The defendants include most of the major chemical hair relaxer manufacturers and distributors sold in the United States. If you used any of the brands below, your product history may line up with the litigation:
- L’Oréal and SoftSheen-Carson products: Dark & Lovely, Optimum, Mizani, Care Free Curl, and Bantu No Base Relaxer.
- Revlon products: Crème of Nature and Revlon Realistic.
- Strength of Nature products: Motions, Just for Me, Soft & Beautiful, TCB, African Pride, and Dr. Miracle’s.
- Namaste Laboratories: ORS Olive Oil.
- Other named manufacturers: Avlon Industries (Affirm), Luster Products (Pink Conditioning No-Lye Relaxer), McBride Research Laboratories (Design Essentials), AFAM Concept/JF Labs (Hawaiian Silky), and Beauty Bell/House of Cheatham (Africa’s Best).
Other defendants include John Paul Mitchell Systems, Wella Operations US, Godrej SON Holdings, Bronner Brothers, and Sally Beauty Supply. In June 2025, Judge Rowland dismissed Walgreens from the litigation, finding that the sole complaint naming the retailer was too vague and failed to show Walgreens knew or should have known about cancer risks.
One company has already been through bankruptcy. Revlon filed for Chapter 11 before the hair relaxer litigation began, and the plaintiffs’ steering committee filed a formal claim within that proceeding to make sure relaxer-related damages were included. Revlon’s approved reorganization plan carved out a $44 million reserve for these claims. That reserve is the only money currently set aside anywhere in the litigation.
The Science Behind the Claims
The lawsuits lean heavily on a 2022 study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of its Sister Study, which tracked 33,497 women aged 35 to 74 for roughly eleven years. Women who used hair straightening products more than four times in the preceding year were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer as women who never used them. The estimated risk of developing uterine cancer by age 70 was 4.05% for frequent users, compared with 1.64% for non-users.
A separate Boston University study published in Environmental Research followed nearly 45,000 Black women for up to 22 years. Postmenopausal women who used chemical relaxers more than twice a year, or for more than five years, had a greater than 50% increased risk of uterine cancer.
Researchers have flagged formaldehyde (a known carcinogen released as a gas when products are heated), parabens, phthalates including DEHP, and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals in these products. A study of 22 relaxer products identified 27 chemicals of concern, and nearly two-thirds contained undisclosed ingredients listed only as “fragrance.” Chemicals can be absorbed through the scalp, and the risk may be heightened by the burns and lesions that relaxers frequently cause.
Where the Case Stands and What Compensation Could Look Like
As of May 2026, 11,526 lawsuits were pending in the MDL, with new cases filed regularly. In November 2023, Judge Rowland denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss and let claims for negligence, design defect, and failure to warn move forward. In September 2024, she ruled that plaintiffs could continue pursuing class allegations and seek punitive damages.
The litigation is now preparing bellwether trials, a set of representative cases that will test the core legal and scientific questions before a jury and typically shape settlement talks for everyone else. Judge Rowland expanded the bellwether discovery pool to 40 cases, with a goal of selecting up to 12 for trial, covering uterine, endometrial, and ovarian cancer. A Science Day was held on January 8, 2026. Defendants’ challenges to plaintiffs’ expert witnesses under the Daubert standard were due April 1, 2026, and are pending. Case-specific fact discovery for bellwether cases was set to close by mid-2026, expert discovery by October 2026, and summary judgment motions by November 2026. No federal trial date is set, but the first trials are widely expected in mid-to-late 2027.
No global settlement exists, and no case has gone to verdict. On April 30, 2025, Judge Rowland appointed Ellen K. Reisman as a special master to facilitate settlement talks. Legal analysts have projected that a global settlement could materialize in late 2026 or beyond, with potential per-case values for cancer claims estimated in the $150,000 to $750,000 range. Those figures are speculative until trials produce actual outcomes.
Because these are individual mass tort claims rather than a class action, any settlement would pay out case by case. Payouts are expected to turn on the type and severity of cancer, the strength of the medical evidence, the duration and frequency of product use, documented medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. The practical takeaway for a Texas resident is straightforward: gather your medical records, write down every relaxer product you can remember using and roughly when, and talk to a product liability attorney well before your two-year window closes.