We've all seen the infomercials, silky, luxurious hair on models and celebrities, who say it's all thanks to WEN by Chaz Dean. Monique Pugh of Aberdeen says she had similar results, until her hair began falling out.
"It's hard. I'm glad I love hats," she said. "I have all kinds of hats and I wear them all of the time. But I didn't think that I would have to wear hats to cover something like this up."
Pugh's long, thick hair was her pride and joy. To take extra care of it, she started using WEN by Chaz Dean hair products about a year ago--after seeing an infomercial on TV. She liked it so much, she bought more and encouraged her mother and daughters to use it.
"Everybody's hair was looking great," she said. "Then all of a sudden, this stuff started coming out."
Pugh now has bald patches all over her scalp. She showed them to ABC2.
"I have one starting out right around here, where my ear and then on this side, right there," she said.
Her mother and two daughters began experiencing hair loss and scalp irritation too.
"We didn't know what was going on, till we saw on the news," Pugh said. "Because I saw a few patches and we kept using the stuff and when we saw what those 200 ladies were doing and we saw their head, my mom was like, 'Oh my god, that's what's going on with us!"
Dallas law firm Christiansen Davis is representing 200 people who say they suffered extreme hair loss, breakage and rashes as a result of using various varieties of WEN's Cleansing Conditioner. They're suing WEN by Chaz Dean, and its parent company Guthy-Renker.
In December, Chaz Dean posted a statement on his Facebook fan page addressing the complaints. It reads in part:
"I feel the pain of anyone having problems with their hair, but I can say with confidence that I stand behind WEN as much today as the day I launched it. The truth is, there are so many reasons people can have problems with their hair, but WEN isn't one of them."
"It took me three years to get my hair this long and for now to just be losing it like that, for something that I thought was making me pretty, you know, helping my self-esteem, that isn't, to me, it isn't right," Pugh said.
She is now trying to figure out how she and her family members can re-grow their hair. She hopes the company can get to the bottom of the mystery as well.
"If he can find out what caused the issue in the first place, that would be great," Pugh said. "So that no more, no one else who may have the product at home or who may want to use the product will end up with stuff like this."
Pugh and her mother are considering joining the lawsuit.
Joe Hixson, spokesman for WEN by Chaz Dean sent ABC2 News the following statement:
"We take great pride in the quality of our products and believe every product meets our high standards. We want all of our customers to have positive experiences with our products, and we encourage any customer with questions to contact us.
With well over 10 million WEN products shipped since 2008, our customers' overwhelmingly positive response to Wen is a testament to the benefits it can deliver for its users. These benefits are reflected in consistently high rankings from independent consumer product sites as well.
Importantly, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support any claim that our hair care products caused anyone to lose their hair. There are many reasons why individuals may lose their hair, all unrelated to WEN hair care products. We will vigorously contest the allegations made against our products.
