The Honest Company’s Honesty Is Challenged Again With Another Lawsuit Claiming Misleading Advertising

Easy target?

But now, yet another lawsuit is in the works against The Honest Company. The fourth one in the last year, Inc. reported that a lady from Illinois filed a class-action lawsuit earlier this month alleging misleading advertising. She says a component called sodium lauryl sulfate or SLS — known to be a toxin and something that could irritate skin and cause health problems, and that The Honest Company swears is not present in any of their products — was actually present in the products she purchased.

The Honest Company says they use sodium coco sulfate (SCS) which has a coconut oil base and is less harsh than SLS. An investigation done by the Wall Street Journal found that even SCS has significant levels of SLS in it. However, Honest maintains they only use natural ingredients in their products and told Inc. that "The claims alleged in the lawsuit are without merit and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves against them."

In February, a Manhattan couple sued the company for the same reason, claiming the company had fraudulently labeled the ingredients in 41 of their products, Reuters reported. And last September, two class-action lawsuits were filed claiming the company was misleading in its marketing of its products being "natural." One suit specifically named the sunscreen and said it had not worked as promised.

The outcome of the most recent lawsuit against The Honest Company remains to be seen as it could take up to a year to make it through the court system. Ultimately, truth and facts will prevail. In the meantime, the company will have to deal with the court of public opinion which is often much more unrelenting than the system.

[Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Honest Company]