Influencer lost her sight and was left scarred by TikTok freckles hack
Influencer and Australian Big Brother star, Tilly Whitfeld, is speaking out to warn others against trying a DIY freckles hack, popular on TikTok, after her own attempts left her scarred and suffering from loss of vision.
Recounting the terrifying ordeal, Tilly told her social media followers that around nine months before her appearance on the reality show, she tried the trend after spotting it on the app. She then self-tattooed freckles on her face with ink purchased from eBay "and a few sewing needles stuck together with sticky tape". Ouch!
Watch: How do Influencers make money from TikTok?
Posting images of her damaged skin, Tilly also explained that her 'beauty hack' was also the reason she often appeared on Big Brother wearing a clay mask - to cool the reaction her skin was still experiencing months later.
"For those asking why I have my blue clay face mask on continuously throughout the show, this is what my face looked like a week prior to entering the house – hence why I always have make-up on and [why] my skin is always covered," she wrote alongside a series of images of her skin looking inflamed and scabbed over. "This is the result of attempting to remove scarring I inflicted on myself trying to replicate an at-home beauty procedure I saw on TikTok."
Tilly warned others not to try any DIY beauty hacks themselves and instead, to learn from her mistake. "Please, please don’t try any 'DIY' or 'at home' beauty procedures, I ended up in hospital with temporary loss of vision in my eye due to swelling and was very sick from the infection, not to mention my face was somewhat unrecognisable."
She later clarified that her scarring is still deep and below surface level.
Following her original post, Tilly then offered another follow-up and said that a dermatologist had thankfully recommended her a treatment that seemed to be giving her a positive result. She also confessed that she'd kept what had happened to her a secret from her parents out of sheer embarrassment.
"I was too embarrassed to even tell my parents cause it was so dumb," Tilly said in her second post. "Fake ink has high levels of lead in it, so when it’s lazered it turns black, so I had to find alternative treatments! After thousands of $$ worth of experimentation, all the ink is out of my dodgy fake freckles and all that’s left is pigmentation scars from the needles."
She added, "My dermatologist suggested Hydroquinone AND OMG it is helping soooo much - I’m using 4%. This dumb ass story has been shared around the world and I’m so hoping it deters others from making the same mistake."
Well done to Tilly for speaking out in the hopes of helping others (and if this isn't a deterrent on the self-tattooing freckles front, then what is?!).
Watch: Follow the TikTok trend - Hold your fire
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