A young woman was temporarily blinded when an allergic reaction to hair dye caused her face to balloon to triple the size, according to a report.
Steph O’Dell, of Milton Keynes, England, spent five days in the hospital thanks to an allergy to paraphenylenediamine (PPD), a chemical commonly found in hair dye, The Sun reported.
“It was terrifying. I was left in agonizing pain and I looked like an alien,” the 24-year-old said. “I was lucky it wasn’t worse. I’ll never dye my hair again.”
The hair-raising dye job was in 2015, when O’Dell went to her local hairdresser to get done up before her sister’s 18th birthday bash in Amsterdam.
“I wanted to look my best. I told the hairdresser I was allergic to PPD and showed pictures of my previous reaction,” she said, adding that she first learned of the allergy as a teen. “She assured me the dye would not touch my scalp and it was organic.”
The stylist performed a patch test on her wrist but wiped the excess away.
“But I didn’t react to the test, so I felt happy to go ahead,” O’Dell recalled.
She got her hair dyed two weeks later — and the same day, her neck began itching. The day after that, when the party arrived in Amsterdam, O’Dell’s face painfully puffed up.
“My glasses began feeling tight and my neck felt like it was on fire. I hoped the swelling would go down,” she said.
But it didn’t — and her eyes swelled shut, forcing O’Dell to hold onto her sister to get around. The crew flew back to the United Kingdom and O’Dell was immediately hospitalized.
“Nurses were worried about my breathing, as my neck was swelling,” she said. “I thought I was going to die and had a panic attack.”
After taking a round of steroids to ease the allergic reaction, O’Dell has sworn off coloring her hair for good.
“I’ll never be touching hair dye again. Instead, I’ll embrace my natural hair,” she said.