Police are investigating after a Wisconsin woman claimed the conditioner she purchased from her local Walmart resulted in her hair falling out.
New Richmond police said a 21-year-old woman reported using hair conditioner she recently purchased “and upon using the product for the first time reported immediate significant hair loss on her head.”
“I just went on with my normal Sunday routine," Ashley Robinson wrote on Facebook, saying she shampooed and conditioned her hair.
But when she got out "something was different and didn't smell the greatest," she said. Robinson said she let her hair sit wet for a bit, but when it still didn’t smell good, she decided to wash it with a different shampoo.
“As I took my hands out of my hair it was covered in hair and just kept on falling out,” she wrote.
Robinson’s mother later posted a warning on Facebook saying the family believes “someone mixed nair [sic] in her conditioner bottle.”
Police said the "product was reported to have a different smell and color than the original product."
“Product tampering can be a felony offense and is cited under Wisconsin State Statute 941.327,” police said in a release. “Due to the significance of this offense, New Richmond officers and detectives have been working with Wal-Mart staff to identify potential suspects and review video surveillance.”
Walmart said a review of evidence showed no signs of tampering with the product while it was in the store.
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“We take claims like this seriously,” the company said in a statement. “As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we inspected all product in our store, reviewed surveillance footage and found no evidence of tampering. We’ve attempted to reach out to the customer to discuss this further and have received no response. We will continue to work with authorities to prosecute if there is proven evidence of tampering.”
Procter & Gamble, which owns Pantene, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Robinson has since shaved her head following the incident.
“My only intentions for sharing is to prevent it from happening to anyone else,” she wrote. "Check your bottles where ever you get them, nothing can be trusted anymore.”
