Dermatologists and hair pros agree: If you're going to dye your hair at home, always do a patch test first. This is a lesson one woman found out the hard way when she experienced an absolutely horrifying allergic reaction:
After picking a drugstore dye to take her from red to black for the holiday season, 26-year-old Natalie Ross, a seasoned at-home hair dyer, decided to skip the recommended 48-hour patch test. She woke up the next day with her eyes so swollen, she couldn't see properly.
"I'd had minor reactions before, itching, a bit of redness, and I used to get lumps that would come up, but they always died down," Ross told The Sun. "I thought it was more skin irritation."
Having dyed her hair since she was 10, Ross thought those reactions were "normal," but this time, her allergy was far worse. Ross's ears began oozing pus within 24 hours; within 48, she "looked like an alien."
After a trip to the emergency room, Ross was given steroids to combat the reaction. She could no longer see except for a small crack out of one eye, and doctors informed her that if she attempted to dye her hair again, she risked going into anaphylactic shock and even dying.
Eventually, Ross simply decided to get rid of the itching and irritation and actually cut off all her hair. While she felt self-conscious about the short crop, she knew it was what was best for her — that, and steering clear of at-home dyeing from now on. "I never dreamed something as simple as hair dye could do that," she told The Sun, adding, "Hair dye to me is now hair die. I will never dye my hair again."
If you're not sure how to do a patch test, here's a quick and easy guide. It may seem a little tedious to do it before every dye job, but you'll be saving yourself a world of grief if it turns out you are allergic. The last thing you want is to experience Ross' horrible hair fate.
[h/t The Sun
Sam's enthusiasm for makeup is only rivaled by their love of all things relating to cats. In their spare time, they enjoy watching scary movies, putting avocado on everything, and seeing how many shades of the rainbow they can dye their hair before 30.
