Olaplex is a name we’ve tracked here at LikeFolio and one which we gave a bullish buy rating on our Opportunity Alerts last October.

But as of recently, the Company has come under a lot of social-chatter that is negative stating that an ingredient in one of their products causes infertility. The product in question is the Olaplex No.3 Hair Perfector, which is an at-home treatment product designed to rehab hair. It also happens to be one of their best-sellers. This seems to have exacerbated the TikTok viral video claiming that it:

1. Would be banned in the EU and UK

2. Causes infertility 

The video that claimed it was to be banned went viral with close to a million views in a few days. And rightfully so in some sense because as LikeFolio noted in that October Opportunity Alert, people love this brand globally, so when this came out it spiked chatter on the name.

As with all things on social media they tend to be taken out of context. So let’s actually dive into the facts on this and we think you’ll see there’s not much to be concerned about.

The product is not being discontinued and is not being banned in the EU or UK. The Company, in a statement verified by Refinery29 the company said: “We removed the ingredient butylphenyl methylpropional (lilial) from manufacturing already so you’ll still be able to purchase the product in the future.”

Olaplex also went on to state, “While lilial was previously used as a fragrance in the Olaplex No. 3 Hair Perfector, it was never an active functional ingredient.”

Again, context is key and the Olaplex customer base would agree.

So, could this be the case of social media rushing to conclusions via emotions, or is this something that is really affecting the company brand?

Let’s dive into some of this social sentiment via LikeFolio data so we can explore it a bit more.

Mentions count QoQ is +44% with YoY at +75%.

Consumer Purchase Intent Mentions are bullish as well: +44% QoQ and +51% YoY.
 If we zoom in on daily mentions on this during this recent news we can see Purchase Intent Mentions have actually spiked.

What this really looks like is a case of social media getting the facts wrong and out of context.