A mother was left hospitalized after she suffered a severe reaction to her hair dye, which left her scalp blistered and her eyes swollen and closed.
Leonie Dee, 27, wanted to dye her hair in two different shades, using Schwarzkopf Live in ‘Cosmic Blue’ and ‘Ultra Violet’, costing £ 4.79 each.
The mother of four says she performed an adhesive test for both products as instructed to ensure that she would not experience an adverse reaction.
However, whatin Leoniand came to dye the top half of her hair with dark blue color, she was horrified to find that her skin started to blister and swell.
After being hospitalized for 36 hours, she now vowed never to dye her hair again.
Leonie, who works as a cleaner at her local doctor’s office in Aberaeron, Wales, said: “It was really scary – at one point, they were worried that the swelling might pass in front of my throat.
“I even asked them at the hospital if shaving all of my hair would help. I was ready to do that if it had made any difference.
“But the ink had already been absorbed by my scalp, so there was nothing to do but wait for the swelling and the blisters to subside.
“I’m definitely never going to dye my hair again – I’m going to let it grow and then let it go.”
Leonie said she used to dye her hair regularly when she was a teenager, but after having children – now aged 11, 10, three and six months – she discovered that she ‘didn’t bother’ and hadn’t dyed in seven years.
As she ‘imagined a change’ this time, she said she was ‘very religious’ about reading the brochure on the box and doing the patch test.
No problem came up with the patch test, so she went ahead and dyed the bottom half of the hair purple.
“That went well,” she said.
“So I waited a few days before doing the blue hair dye on the top half of my head at around 5:30 pm on Thursday.
“When I woke up the next morning, my ears and the side of my neck started to swell up a bit – but I was able to manage that just by taking a few anti-allergy pills that I had at home.”
When Leonie woke up on Saturday morning, she found that her hairline was’ covered by these big bubbles’ and her eyes were so swollen that she couldn’t see anything.
She was rushed to Aberystwyth Hospital at 6pm on Saturday night, spending 36 hours there being treated with anti-allergic steroids, pills and creams, and it was also put in a drip of fluid.
Leonie said: “The bubbles kept popping and dripping blue paint.
“They had to keep the lights off above my hospital bed because the light irritated my eyes. All I could do was sit back and wait for it to get better.”
She returned home on Monday morning at 10:30 am, but the swelling did not fall completely.
“I just need to keep taking the medication – and waiting for my hair to grow back to normal,” she said.
Leonie said that she has since done more research on the Schwarzkopf hair dye, and I found that the darkest Colors such as ‘Cosmic Blue‘ they have a higher concentration of their active ingredients, which they think they have reacted to.
She is also sent an online questionnaire to Schwarzkopf in the first step to make a complaint.
LADbible contacted Schwarzkopf for comment.