A student says he ‘might have been killed’ after suffering third-degree burns all up his arm as a result of a hair dye patch test. Jack Valentine, 27, believes he may have had ‘anaphylactic shock’ as a result of the painful blisters that appeared on his skin following his hair dye patch test.
Jack had experimented with the Just For Men Shampoo-in-Colour dye, which claims to conceal grey hair in five minutes. He stated his arm was alright when he wiped the color away, but the next morning it was ‘ever so slightly uncomfortable.’
The next morning, Jack was in ‘unbearable pain,’ with ‘hundreds of maggots’ stretching under his skin. He said: “I put a little bit on and I left it for five minutes and then I washed it off.” He noticed the patch test was supposed to be left on for 48 hours, but he shudders to think what might have occurred if he had followed the packaging, according to the DailyMail.
“The next day I woke up, had my morning bath and it was a bit red and ever so slightly itchy,” Jack explained. “Through the day, it just got worse and it seemed to spread and then in the early hours of Monday morning, it was unbearable. “I’ve had Meningitis before and I’ve had surgery and it’s nowhere near anything that bad – it was just horrific.”
He described his pain as ‘relentless,’ and sought counsel from the Same Day Health Centre in Fleetwood, Lancashire. The staff there drained and dressed the blisters three times in the hopes that they wouldn’t return.
Doctors warned Jack that if he had ignored the patch test and applied the dye directly to his head, he ‘might have been killed’ or put into an induced coma owing to the shock his body would have received.
Jack had already experienced two allergic reactions, one to a henna tattoo when he was six and the other to another hair color, which is why he wanted to undergo the patch test. He explained: “I tried to dye my hair when I was 15 and I put that straight onto my head. I ended up in the hospital on steroid injections and tablets as my head just went like a balloon.
“So I thought I would try now because it’s been 12 years to see if it worked and it really didn’t.” Jack hopes that his experience will convince other young people to undergo a patch test before dyeing their hair since the risks are just “not worth it.”