The internet is full of beauty hacks and tips. Many of these hacks are definitely worth trying. That’s what 17-year-old Allison thought too: she tried a viral DIY hair removal method, but it ended in disaster.
DIY hair removal method
The viral hack we are talking about is sugar waxing. This is waxing your hair using melted sugar that you spread on your skin. When this hardens and you pull it from your skin, you pull the hair with it. Allison thought it would be a good idea to try out this hack.
Burned skin
Allison’s mother, Nathalie, came home to find Allison busy in the kitchen. Allison often tried new things she saw online, so this was nothing for Nathalie to worry about. So Allison made the sugar wax. An hour and a half later it happened: she had burned herself with the sugar wax. “Allison was showing her skin and at first I thought she had a paper towel on her skin,” Allison’s mother said. “Then I saw that it was her skin completely peeling off, with her bright pink skin underneath. We immediately went to the emergency room.”
Wrong tutorials
The emergency room doctors immediately saw what had gone wrong. In the TikTok videos, people explain that you should put the sugar wax in the refrigerator. By doing this, it does not cool gradually, leaving you with a kind of heat bombs in the center of the wax. Then if you put it in the microwave (which is shown in the tutorials) it will only get hotter. This causes a direct burn on the skin, while it does not seem hot at first. The doctors said that Allison was not the first to arrive at the emergency room that week with this problem.
Skin transplantation
While the burning initially seemed fairly harmless, it actually became increasingly worse. Her entire thumb turned into a big blister. During the night the blister burst and her skin was open. The doctors then discovered a second-degree burn. It was so bad that Allison received a skin transplant at the burn center.
The entire healing process took about four to five weeks. Allison has a permanent scar, but fortunately not so bad that a plastic surgeon had to miss it.
Misinformation in TikToks
Allison followed exactly the steps she saw in the various TikTok videos. People sharing the hack do not provide a disclaimer or warning about this trend. The people who share this are doing it for the 100th time and Allison’s mother believes that TikTok should have certain warnings. Natalie also warns about the dangers of this trend on her Facebook account.
