Baby Wipes Lawsuit: Huggies and Kirkland Wipes PFAS and 'Natural' Claims

Parents choose wipes for sensitive skin, and brands market them that way: fragrance free, hypoallergenic, naturally derived, plant based. The lawsuits say those claims hid chemicals parents would want to know about, or overstated how natural the wipes were.

Kirkland Signature (Costco and Nice-Pak)

Bullard v. Costco Wholesale Corp., No. 3:24-cv-03714 in the Northern District of California, targets Kirkland Signature Baby Wipes, Fragrance Free, made by Nice-Pak Products and sold by Costco. Plaintiff Larisa Bullard says she bought them multiple times from January 2022 to February 2024, relying on the happy-baby imagery and the statement that the wipes were "made with naturally derived ingredients." The amended complaint says her lawyers' testing at a Department of Defense ELAP-certified lab found 3.6 ppb of perfluoropropionic acid, 0.15 ppb of PMPA, and 0.040 ppb of R-EVE. She says she would not have bought the wipes, or would have paid less, had she known. Costco disputes that the wipes are dangerous.

Huggies Simply Clean (Kimberly-Clark)

Erickson v. Kimberly-Clark Corporation, No. 3:24-cv-07032, filed in 2024 in the Northern District of California, claims Huggies Simply Clean Fragrance Free Baby Wipes contain PFAS despite packaging that calls them "simply clean," "Hypoallergenic," "Dermatologically Tested," "Alcohol Free," and "Paraben Free." The named plaintiffs bought the wipes in 2023 and 2024.

Huggies Natural Care (Kimberly-Clark)

A separate case brought by Summer Whiteside in the Central District of California challenged "Natural Care" and "plant-based" claims on Huggies Natural Care Baby Wipes, which the complaint said contain synthetic ingredients. This is a "natural" labeling case, not a PFAS case.

All of these are allegations. The companies deny them.

In the Costco case, Judge Richard Seeborg first dismissed the complaint with leave to amend, then on May 14, 2025 refused to dismiss the amended version, because it now named the specific PFAS and amounts found. He held that questions about how risky those chemicals are should not be decided at the pleading stage. We found no class certification ruling or settlement as of September 2026.

In the Huggies Simply Clean case, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted Kimberly-Clark's motion to dismiss the first amended complaint on July 28, 2025, giving the plaintiffs 21 days to file a second amended complaint.

In the Natural Care case, the trial judge had found the labels not misleading as a matter of law. On July 17, 2024, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel affirmed that ruling for label statements followed by an asterisk pointing to a qualifier, but sent back the claims about front-label statements without an asterisk for another look.

The Costco case shows the pattern courts have followed in PFAS consumer suits. The original complaint did not say which PFAS were found or how much, and it was dismissed. The amended complaint named three compounds and their concentrations from a certified lab, and it survived.

Courts have repeatedly dismissed PFAS product cases where plaintiffs relied on vague testing, on total organic fluorine screening (which does not identify specific PFAS), or on testing of products other than the ones they bought. A 2024 dismissal of PFAS claims against o.b. and Playtex tampons turned on exactly that problem: the plaintiffs tested for organic fluorine, not PFAS, and did not report the results.

The amounts alleged in the Costco case are small, measured in parts per billion. Whether that matters legally is a question for later in the case; at the pleading stage, the judge only asked whether the claims were plausible. For the bigger picture on PFAS claims, see our PFAS in products lawsuits page.

The Huggies Simply Clean ruling shows the other side of the coin. According to the July 28, 2025 order, the plaintiffs' lawyers had a randomly selected sample tested in March 2024 at a Department of Defense ELAP-certified lab using EPA Method 537, which reported PFAS at 305 parts per trillion. The court still dismissed the complaint, for reasons that had less to do with the testing than with the packaging:

• The plant-based claim was qualified. The package's "plant-based" statement carried a prominent asterisk saying the wipes were 70% or more plant-based by weight. Relying on the Ninth Circuit's Whiteside decision, the judge held no reasonable consumer would read that as a promise of zero synthetic ingredients or zero trace PFAS.
• The remaining claims needed more. The court recognized that words like gentle, hypoallergenic, and dermatologically tested, taken together, could suggest a product free of harmful ingredients, but held that theory works only if the amount of PFAS is actually harmful. The plaintiffs compared the wipes' 305 ppt to EPA drinking water levels for PFOA and PFOS, but did not allege either chemical was in the wipes or explain why drinking water levels apply to a product used on skin. The court dismissed the express warranty and unjust enrichment claims along with the rest.

The plaintiffs were given 21 days to try again. The lesson for parents is that a lab result alone does not make a case; the label's exact wording, including fine print and asterisks, often decides the outcome.

If a class is certified or a settlement is reached, the class will likely be people who bought the specific product during a defined class period, possibly limited to certain states. From the filings:

• Kirkland: buyers of Kirkland Signature Baby Wipes, Fragrance Free.
• Huggies Simply Clean: buyers of Huggies Simply Clean Fragrance Free wipes, if the case continues after the July 2025 dismissal.
• Huggies Natural Care: buyers who relied on front-label natural claims, depending on how the remanded case proceeds.

Costco members have an advantage: purchase history is stored in your membership account, which makes proof of purchase easy. You do not need to sign up for a proposed class. See our guide on how to join a class action.

A few practical points about eligibility. Class definitions usually cover purchases for personal or household use, so a daycare or business that bought wipes in bulk for resale would typically be excluded. Settlements in product cases often cap how many units you can claim without proof, and allow more with receipts; Costco and online order histories can supply that proof years later. And if you received wipes as a gift or at a baby shower, you generally are not a purchaser, although the person who bought them may be.

No baby wipes case has produced a payment, and dismissal is possible. If one settles, expect a refund-style payment tied to the number of packs bought, with higher caps for people who have purchase records. Comparable PFAS consumer settlements have been modest; the Thinx period underwear settlement, for example, created a fund of up to $5 million.

These cases do not seek compensation for injuries. If your child had a rash or reaction, that would be a separate individual claim needing medical records. Read settlements that pay without proof of purchase for how no-receipt tiers usually work.

Parents sometimes ask whether diapers are part of these cases. We did not find a pending diaper class action tied to PFAS or natural claims among the cases reviewed for this page; the verified cases involve wipes. If you have a diaper-related injury, such as a severe rash or burn, that would be evaluated as an individual product claim with medical records.

The Huggies Simply Clean complaint relies on California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act, Unfair Competition Law, and False Advertising Law, plus breach of express warranty and unjust enrichment. The Costco complaint makes similar consumer protection and warranty claims. The question in each is whether a reasonable parent would be misled by the packaging.

PFAS are a large family of synthetic chemicals that resist breaking down. There is no federal limit on PFAS in baby wipes, which is why these cases are framed as labeling and disclosure disputes rather than violations of a safety standard. Under California law, the CLRA has a three-year statute of limitations and the UCL four years, which is why many complaints reach back about four years from filing.

Two recurring legal questions decide most baby product cases. The first is whether the label is read as a whole. Ninth Circuit law, applied in the Huggies cases, lets a court look at the entire package, including fine print, asterisks, and back-label disclosures, when deciding whether a reasonable parent would be misled. The Whiteside appeal turned on exactly this: front-label statements with an asterisk leading to a qualifier were treated differently from front-label statements without one. The second question is whether the amount of a chemical makes a safety-flavored claim false. In the Huggies Simply Clean case, the judge said a "harmful ingredients" theory only works if the plaintiffs plausibly allege the detected amount is harmful in a product used on skin. Future complaints are likely to add expert allegations on exactly that point.

1. Download your purchase history from Costco, Target, Amazon, or your grocery app.
2. Photograph packaging you still have, including lot numbers and claims.
3. Talk to your pediatrician about any skin reactions; fragrance-free wipes or plain water and a soft cloth are common alternatives for sensitive skin.
4. Ignore payout claims. There is no settlement to join.

If you want to know whether you fit one of these cases, or if your child had a reaction you believe was caused by a wipe or diaper, independent attorneys who handle consumer product cases can look at it. A free case review takes about two minutes. See also toxic baby food lawsuits.