19-Year Old’s Horrific Reaction to Eyebrow Treatment: What You Need to Know
Polly Smith, 19, went to the salon for a popular brow-thickening treatment, expecting to come out with thicker, lusher, Cara Delevingne-like brows. But she woke up the next morning to something else entirely. (Photo: SWNS)
Treatments from eyebrow dying to eyelash extensions have become routine for many women — young and older — over the past few years. Typically these procedures begin with a quick allergy patch test to indicate any potential allergies to the chemicals used in the treatment. If a sensitivity is shown, the patient will opt out of the treatment.
Polly Smith, 19 from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, U.K, got a procedure designed to give fuller-looking brows, called an HD Treatment, which includes a personalized cocktail of dying, waxing and threading the arches.
Polly, pictured before here eye brow treatment. (Photo: SWNS)
However, the allergy test (which had no indications of irritation) was wrong.
When Polly woke up, she was barely able to open her eyes. The swelling, inflammation and scabby reaction, due to infection, resulted in Smith’s brows falling out, and the teenager could have life-long scars.
When Polly woke up, she was barely able to open her eyes. (Photo: SWNS)
According to The Daily Mail, Polly was prescribed 15 tablets a day — a mix of antibiotics, steroids and anti-histamines — and had to leave her job as a sales assistant to tend to the injuries.
“It was horrible and so painful and I looked like I had been punched in the face,” she said.
(Photo: SWNS)
“I had the treatment to get nice pretty eyebrows and now they are patchier than ever. I feel so disappointed. I’m still quite self-conscious about it. I felt like everyone is just looking at me. I would say to people now to be careful with dye.”
Though her salon followed proper protocol, Polly most likely had a reaction to the dye that was used during her HD brow procedure. But as brow enhancing treatments like this one, along with eyelash extensions, which have become a staple of many women’s beauty routines, become even more popular, reactions like Polly’s will only continue to rise.
“Procedures like these are trendy. Trendy things such as long eyelashes, perfectly shaped eyebrows, longer hair, certain hair colors, etc. will always exist and become popular because certain celebrities use them, and they then take off with the public,” Robert Dorin, a doctor who specializes in hair restoration, tells Yahoo Health. “As far as eyebrow and eyelash extensions however, the case of Polly Smith is not the first instance where people have suffered allergic reactions, damage to their eyes.”
Many of these procedures were born in Japan, and are more widely used there than any other country. Not surprisingly, lash extensions account for the highest number of eye-clinic visits in that country.
“In my opinion, eyelash and eyebrow extensions will never be fully safe because they involve new hairs and chemicals that are placed onto existing hairs,” says Dorin. “This pulls and wears away at a person’s natural/original hairs.”
Below, Dorin answers a few more pressing questions for women considering these procedures:
How are eyelash/eyebrow extensions applied?
“Each individual hair and each individual eyelash receives only one extension where glue is typically used to connect the hairs. Salons can also use dying agents for certain eyebrow treatments to thicken and darken them. Store-bought extensions also use a glue adhesive, and both salon and store-bought extensions pose dangers. Some of the dangers behind these extensions are as follows:
The adhesive glue used to attach the synthetic hair to a person’s natural hair can cause allergic reactions along with the cleaners that are used to remove the hairs.
Cosmetic eyelash and eyebrow enhancers can also carry with them the risk of fungal and bacterial infection.
Eyelash extensions can irritate the eye (specifically the cornea) if direct contact from the lashes themselves or the glue touches the eye/gets into the eye. In Japan specifically where eyelashes are most widely used, they account for the highest number of eye-clinic visits.”
How can you verify you won’t get injured from getting these procedures in a salon?
“You can’t. In the case of Polly Smith, the teenage girl from the UK who got an eyebrow treatment to thicken them — she did not know that she was allergic to the dyes that they used on her eyebrows. Sources from this story stated that the salon performed a ‘skin’ and ‘dye’ test on Polly, but clearly that did not do much because it still turned out that she ended up being allergic to the dying agents that the salon used in attempts to thicken her eyebrows.”
What else do you advise women to know before getting something like this done to avoid reactions like Polly Smith?
“I advise women to look past the ‘trends’ and to start considering the health risks behind procedures like this. Infection is a real concern considering it is done in close proximity to the eye.”
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