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32 November 2015 | beautystorebusiness.com Beauty & The Law target user's genes to provide antiaging benefits. According to the FTC, Génifique ads said the product is "clinically proven" to "boost genes' activity and stimulate the production of youth proteins," and Youth Code ads told users that there is a "new era of skincare: gene science" and that consumers could "crack the code to younger acting skin." The FTC alleged that these claims were unsubstantiated. The settlement agreement prohibits L'Oréal from advertising that certain facial prod- ucts result in skin that looks or acts younger, or responds faster to stress, fatigue or aging, unless there is "compe- tent and reliable scientific evidence that is sufficient in quality and quantity based on standards generally accepted in the relevant scientific field, when considered in light of the entire body of relevant and reliable scientific evidence, to substantiate that the representation is true." Additionally, Beiersdorf settled with the FTC over allegations that ads for Nivea My Silhouette! skin cream had deceptive claims that the cream reduced body sizes. My Silhouette! contains "Bio- Slim Complex," which includes white tea and anise. According to the complaint, a TV ad said that "New Nivea My Sil- houette! with Bio-Slim Complex helps redefine the appearance of your silhou- ette and noticeably firm skin in just four weeks." The ad showed a woman get- ting jeans out of the rear of a closet and putting them on, discovering that they fit. The ad continued: "So you can rediscover your favorite jeans. And how they still get his attention. New Nivea My Silhouette! with Bio-Slim Complex. Touch and be touched." The FTC claimed that My Silhouette! does not significantly reduce body size. Beiersdorf agreed to pay $900,000 and not to make claims that certain skin products cause weight loss, fat loss or a reduction in body size. Recently, the FTC obtained a court order requiring marketers to stop advertising "risk free trial" offers for skincare products unless they fully disclosed all the terms and charges. The FTC said that consum- ers responded to Internet ads for risk-free trials and gave their credit card numbers to cover shipping costs. Instead, they were charged full price and enrolled in a subscription plan (a "negative option") that was allegedly difficult to opt out of. The FTC also alleged that the defendants represented that they were accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an "A-" rating, but they actually had a "F" rating. The court froze the defendants' assets, including barring them from cash- ing any checks, charging any credit cards or receiving any loans, to preserve the defendants' assets for payment of damages to injured consumers. ✔ Class-action lawsuits against beauty businesses One plaintiff can sue on behalf of a class of people who were similarly injured by a defendant, and these "class action" litiga- tions are often complex high-stakes cases because of the many issues they present and the large payments often required to make numerous purchasers whole for their losses. One example of a class-action lawsuit was brought against Vogue Inter- national's Organix products in 2012 and settled in 2014. The plaintiffs claimed that the products violated the California, New York, Hawaii and Washington consumer- protection and false-advertising laws because they were advertised as organic but were mostly made of nonorganic ingre- dients. In addition to citing these and other laws, the plaintiffs alleged that the name Organix violated the California Organic Products Act, which requires all cosmet- ics sold as organic to have at least 70% organic content. Vogue International paid $6.5 million into a fund to be used for payments to purchasers of certain Organix products, including up to $650,000 to administer those payments, and up to HEALTHY HAIR just got sleek!