My name is 46 year old female. Natalie Renken In February, the Iowa resident shared an incident in which her teenage daughter suffered burns and blisters that left her skin peeling off like “paper towels.” The horrifying incident occurred while the 17-year-old was trying out TikTok beauty trends on her FYP (‘For you’ page).
The injured teenager, 17-year-old Alison Boles, had tried “sugar waxing”. Popular do-it-yourself (DIY) trends from social media that have been making the rounds on the internet lately. According to reports, this hair removal beauty trend is made with household ingredients: sugar, honey, and water instead of standard wax. But how did it lead to serious injuries to the teenager?
DIY Fail: US Teens Suffer Burns After Popular Sugar Wax Trend
The February incident, which left 17-year-old Alison Boles with severe burns that sent her to the emergency room, was all just following an internet trend. Bolles sustained second-degree burns, and her full recovery is expected to take more than four weeks.
Allison’s mother, Renken, said she returned home to find Boles “making something” in the kitchen. She said Ms. Renken thought nothing of it when she saw Ms. Boles with her daughter near the stove, so she said she was always “crafty and making things.” . But then Renken’s nightmarish situation escalated, prompting her to rush her daughter to the hospital.
About an hour and a half later, Boles confessed to her mother that she had suffered burns while trying out an online beauty trend. Renken said her daughter had severe burns from waxing, and her daughter had blisters bigger than her thumb, and her skin was peeling off like paper towels.She couldn’t believe it, but her daughter’s skin was actually peeling off. He described the situation in a horrifying manner. All night!
Balls was following a recipe for natural hair removal “sugar wax” originally from a video that originated in Egypt, but tragedy struck when Balls discovered it through a TikTok recommendation. Boles wasn’t necessarily looking for natural hair removal recipes, but then when he came across the recipe on his TikTok feed, he watched more such videos and researched about the same.
In the video that Bolles followed, instead of using the standard wax ingredients, she was instructed to cook natural ingredients on the stove – sugar, honey and water – and then microwaved the refrigerated grop. It was instructed to reheat for 2 hours. When the teen followed her instructions, took the reheated wad of wax out of the microwave, stirred it, and used it, the hot wax splattered all over her thumb, causing it to blister. The blister grew several inches tall and was larger than her thumb. Then it exploded overnight.
When Ms. Boles was rushed to the hospital, doctors told her that this was the second such case after another patient tried the online beauty trend “sugar wax,” and that she was given 1 to 10 hot waxes. He explained how a flash occurs just by leaving it in the refrigerator for two hours. When cooled, the mixture does not cool evenly, creating hot pockets within the mixture, and when reheated, these pockets get hotter even though other parts are just warm, causing a combustion reaction that can cause the wax to splatter, which can be dangerous. .
Boles’ experience is a wake-up call for teenagers and young adults who are increasingly turning to social media for beauty hacks and diving into trends. Sugar waxing is an effective hair removal method when done correctly by a professional, but it can lead to serious injuries, especially when attempted at home without proper instruction on safe heating techniques and application methods.
