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| Posted by Donesia - 05-02-2023, 01:35 PM |
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Here is a previous case by *** (Identity withheld for privacy reasons). status--under review I am reaching out to see about the possibility of holding a company accountable on behalf of myself, and a group of others. This has to do with Fraudulent Advertising/Product Claims concerning life-changing toxic ingredients where the company claimed its products were free of significant toxins, but are not. The company, Makesy, is one of the largest suppliers of candle, soap, skincare, and body care supplies & ingredients for small businesses and hobbyists nationwide. They have an extensive customer base, many of who, like me, relied on Makesy’s claims that their products were toxin-free. I recently discovered their deception and notified others in the maker community through one of the Candle Making Facebook groups I am a member of, which has 85,000 members. Unsurprisingly, given the impact of Makesy’s false claims, there were quite a few people who were extremely upset, and I have been contacted directly about pursuing a class action by some of them. Those who have contacted me thus far are just the tip of the iceberg. To give some background, I began candle making about a year ago. This is more than a hobby for myself and tens of thousands of others. It is a business venture that we put an enormous amount of money, work, and time into. For most - including candle, skincare and soap makers - this is a cottage industry where people work primarily out of their homes, around their families, children, and pets. Their products are then sold online, at farmer’s markets and fairs, local retail stores, and on large wholesale platforms like Faire and Abound. One of the primary components for making any of the above-mentioned products is Fragrance Oil (FO for short). Industry-wide, there is not a lot of acknowledgment concerning the hazards of fragrance oils - but only a few companies make direct, overt claims that some or all of their FOs are free of life-altering toxins. Only one of those companies was outright lying, and that is Makesy. I have lost several family members to cancer, known people who suffered miscarriages, and my little niece was born with a heart defect so serious that she required a heart transplant at 6 months old. These are the driving reasons I sought to purchase fragrance oils that are carcinogen, mutagen, organ and reproductive toxin free. This is not something I take lightly. Makesy (formerly The Wooden Wick co) advertised on their website that they were free of all these toxins, and that was the primary reason I chose them over other suppliers. On every single fragrance oil product page, they claimed to be non-toxic, mutagen-free, reproductive toxin-free, organ toxin-free, and carcinogen free. They had a section called “Made Better” that touts these claims, and they made the claims in other places on the site as well. Because I trusted this information, I purchased a lot of fragrance oils from them, along with other products. All told, I have spent over $3600 with them in less than a year. Recently, when researching perfumery and learning about what governing bodies oversee fragrances, I discovered that more detailed information about fragrance oils is available on a Safety Data Sheet. While every company selling FOs is required to supply an SDS, it is not always prominent, or apparent as to what it means. After learning about this, I double-checked the oils I had bought from several different companies. When I went through the Safety Data Sheets for the 114 oils I bought from Makesy - I discovered that 21 of them have either carcinogens, reproductive toxins, or organ toxins present. I was completely shocked. After this finding, I went through all 266 of their FOs and found 49 that contained those toxins as well. This is just one product category - I didn’t even check their other ingredient lines. Makesy has some of the highest prices on the market, and people are willing to pay a premium (often between $49 - $89 for 16oz of FO) because their products are supposedly “Made Better” without toxins. They made a point to get their customers to believe this, and it is not only misleading but blatantly false in a pretty shocking number of fragrance oils. I contacted them about this, and at first, all they did was gloss over the issue via several emails. They initially took no responsibility and tried to deflect. As I mentioned above, I am a member of several large candle-making Facebook groups, and I blew the whistle on Makesy’s deception. Many of my fellow candle makers were horrified by all this, and it led other people to contact Makesy about their toxic FOs as well. The uproar led to Makesy finally sending me an email saying they will be checking all of their Safety Data Sheets and “Made Better” claims. They quickly removed the claims from the product pages of the oils I pointed out to them as having major toxins, but they still have claims elsewhere on the site, and made the changes very quietly. I am happy that future customers will be *less* deceived. But this does nothing to remedy the damage caused to all of the people who trusted them or to force them to be upfront about selling potentially dangerous products to unsuspecting customers. They had the gall to send out a newsletter saying their fragrance oils were the safest on the market after all of this. I would like to see them held responsible for fraudulently claiming something so boldly untrue. Especially when it comes to substances that could contribute to cancer, birth defects, or miscarriages. I am personally out all the money I spent with them, even on products that were not fragrance oils. The nature of candle making requires significant investment into testing, as you have to test each combination of vessels, fragrance oils, wax & wicks for safety. I am out nearly a year's worth of money, time, and labor developing my line around their products. I have to start over now because I cannot trust them. I will never buy from them again. The only thing they offered to remedy this was a refund or store credit for just the oils that I identified as having major toxins. That is paltry considering the damage done. This same predicament is shared by others in the community, and there is a lot of anger. Their site is Makesy.com, they are located in California but sell nationwide. I have emails and screenshots that show their fraudulent claims, as well as the Safety Data Sheets. As a side note - they also claim the Prop 65 Naturally Occurring exemption for the ingredients in their fragrance oils that would otherwise require a Prop 65 notification in California. This itself is misleading to people outside of California as well. It’s widely perceived that if there is no Prop 65 warning, then a product does not contain any major reproductive toxin or carcinogen. The Naturally Occurring exemption in my understanding is for food or products made from food. Makesy uses the exemption to cover the essential oils used in their fragrance oils. As far as I have found, they are misusing this exemption to further mislead their customers. |