‘I seemed like I’d been in a battle with Mike Tyson after response to hair dye’
A mum-of-one had a ‘traumatising’ experience after ballooning to the size of the movie character Drop Dead Fred following a severe allergic reaction to hair dye
A bar manager claims she was left looking like she’d been in “a ring with Mike Tyson” after suffering an allergic reaction to Clairol Nice n’ Easy hair dye. Tiffany Clissett, from Cwmbran in South Wales, had been touching up her mousey brown roots with black dye on October 2nd after letting her hair grow out for five weeks.
The 36-year-old said she had been dying her locks black for around nine years using a variety of brands and on this occasion had bought Clairol Nice N’ Easy to try. But three days after slathering the product on her hair without conducting a patch test first, she claims her head began to feel tight and shiny as if she’d had ‘Botox’.
Throughout the day she claims her forehead began to ‘poke out’ and the swelling started to cause her eyes to close. And when she woke up on October 6 with wet hair after ‘pus-filled’ blisters on her head popped, she booked an appointment with her GP.
At the appointment, she claims a doctor confirmed she had suffered an allergic reaction to the hair dye and was prescribed antihistamines and steroid cream for her scalp. Shocking photos show Tiffany’s face completely swollen.
She further revealed that she was compared to the movie character Drop Dead Fred when he slams his head shut in a fridge. Luckily after a week of taking the medication Tiffany’s face swelling went down and the scabs had healed up three weeks later.
The mum-of-one says she will now get her hair dyed at the hairdressers and is urging others to conduct a patch test before colouring their own locks. Tiffany said: “I’ve always dyed it myself as it’s easy and a hairdresser’s is expensive.
“I’ve used all different dyes but this specific one was Clairol. I think I’ve probably used this before in the past.
“I didn’t think twice about doing a patch test. [On Sunday] all of a sudden my head felt very tight and felt like it was pulling.
“I looked in the car mirror and I could see my head was swollen and poking out. It looked really tight and shiny like I’d had Botox. As the day went on, it [the swelling] started getting bigger and moved down to my eye. Everyone said I looked like Drop Dead Fred when he got his head slammed in the fridge.
“Everyone was laughing and then it got a bit serious and you could see it getting bigger and bigger. [The next morning], by then it had gone all under my eyes and it looked like I had been in a ring with Mike Tyson.
“I had woken up that morning and my hair was wet from pus as all the blisters had popped in my head. I couldn’t see them but they were like little water blisters and they were sore and would sting.
“[At this point] I couldn’t see out of my right eye.” Due to the severity of the allergic reaction and facial swelling, Tiffany says she had to take a week off work.
And following her ‘traumatic’ reaction, she is now urging others to always do a patch test when using an at-home dye kit. Tiffany said: “I will maybe now go to a hairdresser and do a proper patch test and leave it a few days as my reaction took a few days to show.
“This was quite traumatising to go through. People need to make sure they do a patch test as it’s not worth it.
“It wasn’t just the physical side of it. I still have some scabs on my head and the open wounds on my head were really painful and they stinged and it was hard not to scratch them.”
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