Talc is the softest mineral there is. On the Mohs scale, which runs from one to ten, talc is the one, the reference point against which every other mineral’s hardness is measured. A fingernail will scratch it. It is hydrous magnesium silicate, formed over millions of years as heat and pressure work on rock deep underground, and when it is ground down it becomes a fine white powder that absorbs moisture and lets skin glide over skin without friction.
People worked this out a long time ago. Ground talc has been found in cosmetics from ancient Egypt. But talcum powder as we know it, with the tin and the shaker holes and the smell of a freshly bathed baby, is a specific commercial invention, and it dates to 1894, when Johnson & Johnson began selling Johnson’s Baby Powder. It had started as an afterthought: the company had been including small containers of talc with medicated plasters to soothe skin irritation, customers wrote in asking for more of the powder on its own, and a product was born.
It became one of the most recognisable consumer goods ever made. For most of the twentieth century, baby powder was not really a product so much as a default, a thing you simply had, the way you had soap.
The problem underground
The difficulty with talc is not the talc. It is what talc grows next to.
Talc deposits form in metamorphic rock, and the same geological conditions that produce talc can also produce asbestos. The two minerals occur in the same seams. This is a matter of geology rather than allegation, and it means that talc mined for consumer products has to be carefully sourced and tested to ensure it is free of asbestos contamination. Asbestos is a known human carcinogen, particularly linked to mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs and abdomen.
From the 1970s onward, questions were raised in scientific and regulatory circles about whether cosmetic talc was reliably free of it. Separately, researchers began publishing studies exploring whether the use of talcum powder for feminine hygiene was associated with ovarian cancer. The epidemiology has been genuinely contested for decades: some studies found an association, others did not, and scientific bodies have differed in their conclusions.
The lawsuits
By the 2010s, that scientific argument had moved into the courtroom, and the volume of claims against Johnson & Johnson grew into the tens of thousands. Plaintiffs alleged that the company’s talc products had caused their ovarian cancer or mesothelioma, and that the company had known about the risk of asbestos contamination without adequately warning consumers.
Some of the verdicts were enormous. In 2018, a jury in St. Louis awarded roughly $4.69 billion to twenty-two women who said the company’s talc products had caused their ovarian cancer. On appeal the award was reduced to around $2.12 billion, and in 2021 the US Supreme Court declined to hear the company’s challenge, leaving that judgment in place.
Also in 2018, a Reuters investigation reported on internal company documents which, it said, showed that from at least 1971 into the early 2000s the company’s raw talc and finished powders had sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos. Johnson & Johnson publicly and forcefully disputed that characterisation, describing the reporting as one-sided and inaccurate.
Throughout, Johnson & Johnson has maintained that its talc is safe, that it does not contain asbestos, and that it does not cause cancer. The company denies wrongdoing.
The company also pursued an unusual legal strategy that drew considerable attention: a corporate restructuring, widely nicknamed the “Texas two-step”, in which talc liabilities were moved into a newly created subsidiary which then filed for bankruptcy protection, a move intended to resolve the claims collectively in a bankruptcy court rather than through thousands of individual jury trials. Courts repeatedly rejected the attempt, finding the subsidiary was not in genuine financial distress, and the litigation returned to the ordinary tort system.
The quiet ending
In May 2020, Johnson & Johnson announced it would stop selling talc-based baby powder in the United States and Canada, citing changes in consumer habits and what it called misinformation about the product’s safety. In 2022 it announced it would discontinue talc-based baby powder worldwide, and in 2023 it completed the switch.