Febreze Aerosol Air Fresheners and Odor Elimination Class Action

This class action brings suit against the Procter & Gamble Company for its Febreze aerosol air fresheners that are advertised to “Eliminate[] Odors.” The complaint reviews the testing performed for the products and alleges that they do not in fact eliminate odors and that the tests demonstrate this.

Two classes have been defined for this action:

• The New York Class is all persons in New York who bought the product during the applicable statutes of limitations.
• The Consumer Fraud Multi-State Class is all persons in New Mexico, Utah, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska who bought the product during the applicable statutes of limitations.

The first page of the complaint shows images of two of the products, with close-ups of the promises of each, including “Eliminates odors, 100% Natural propellant” and “Eliminates Odors and Freshens.”

The commercials for the products, the complaint alleges, include animations that portray odor molecules being destroyed by the spray. The complaint quotes the product’s website as saying that the products are “designed to actually eliminate bad odors without just masking them.”

The complaint alleges, “Consumers understand this to mean the elimination of odor (1) at the molecular level by physically destroying the odor molecules and/or (2) at the olfactory level by reducing malodorous molecules to a level where odor is not detectable.” But the complaint alleges that the products do not do either one.

While certain substances exist that can change bad-smelling molecules into smaller particles that do not smell, the complaint says these are not ingredients in the product.

The main active ingredient in the product, the complaint says, is hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin, which the complaint claims does not destroy or change odors, “but merely envelops and sequesters them, reducing their release into the air and thus the perception of malodor.” According to the complaint, this substance cannot “eliminate odors.”

The complaint alleges that Febreze’s testing consisted of Difference from Control (DFC) tests, which are done by seeing if subjects detect differences between a sample and a control. According to the complaint, the subjects were both ordinary consumers and “trained sensory panelists.”

While the trained sensory panelists rated the products’ abilities somewhat higher than the ordinary consumers did, the complaint claims this was because the trained people were told to rate them based on the intensity of the bad smell, consumers were told to rate the “pleasantness” of the smell—a different thing, the complaint claims, that whether the consumer detects the bad smell.

“Nonetheless,” the complaint alleges, even according to these criteria, “the expert responses showed that malodor was not eliminated.” According to the complaint, the experts rated only 20% of the test chambers as showing no malodor, meaning that 80% of them showed remaining malodor.

The complaint alleges, “These findings were confirmed by studies which evaluated the Product under ASTM protocols.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, Item Does Not Do What It Is Advertised to Do