- Ready for your corpse injection?
They say you have to suffer for beauty. Depending on what you do, that suffering may quickly become very real.
People are ready to do pretty crazy things to look better (at least in their own heads). It seems like every day there’s some new thing that’s supposed to make you prettier, but it comes with a ridiculous list of potential risks.
Here’s a collection of eight current beauty treatments that you’re best off not trying.
1. At-Home Botox Kits
A little bit of Botox is generally harmless, and it can in some cases even be used to treat medical conditions. However, those beneficial injections are always done by professionals.
The issue is that there are at-home Botox kits on the market that allow you to inject the stuff into your face yourself. Are you a professional plastic surgeon? If not, you could seriously botch the injection.
After all, Botox is a literal neurotoxin. Failed home-made Botox injections can easily result in swelling, misshapen features, or even partial paralysis in the injected site. And that’s without mentioning infection from insufficient aftercare.
2. Extreme Chemical Peels
Chemical peels are another example of products that can be harmless when bought from reputable manufacturers and used in moderation. However, some people who have gone a bit ga-ga on facial peels have bought questionable extra-strength products.
They may contain acids that are not meant for cosmetic use, or may contain otherwise safe chemicals in concentrations that become harmful. Either way, rubbing strong acids on your face can have gruesome results.
On the milder end of the scale, we’re talking about redness, irritation, and rash. On the other end, you might suffer straight-up chemical burns – and I probably don’t need to tell you why that’s bad.
3. Vampire Facials
A vampire facial sounds creepy. The reality isn’t much more disconcerting, as these treatments inject you with a hyaluronic acid filler mixed with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) extracted from human blood.
At least they use your own blood to get the PRP.
However, there’s no real benefit to this treatment over more conventional facial injections. However, it’s become very popular recently (in part thanks to being endorsed by some Hollywood celebrities), which has led to total quacks offering the treatment. And like with any amateur injections, you risk deforming your face and getting nasty infections.
4. Hyaluron Pens
Okay, but what if you squirted completely blood-free hyaluronic filler into your face – and you did it without a needle? That’s what hyaluron pens (and other needle-free fillers) promise to do.
Instead of a needle, they push the hyaluronic acid through your skin using high air pressure. This is where alarm bells should start going off in your head.
This should be needless to say, but having anything injected into your body through extreme pressure is not healthy. There’s no way to control where the filler goes under your skin without a needle, so it might end up everywhere except where you wanted it. Additionally, Hyaluron pens are not approved by the FDA due to the high risk of injury their use carries.
5. Brazilian Blowouts
The Brazilian blowout is the latest hotness in haircare. It blasts your hair with a “keratin-based formula” that is sealed on your hair strands with heat. It’s supposed to give your hair a smoother texture and enhance shine and volume.
Know what else that abovementioned formula contains? Formaldehyde.
If you’re not familiar with this chemical, I’ll just say that it’s toxic. Repeated exposure to it can lead to breathing problems and eye damage.
That said, you’d need several treatments for those issues to manifest. Yet, formaldehyde also paradoxically makes your hair weaker, so that extra volume may not last very long.
6. Skin-Lightening Products
Sunlight, scars, aging, or myriad other things could leave darker splotches on the skin. Not everyone’s okay with that, and there are a lot of different creams, injections, and other skin-lightening products out there.
None of them are really fit for use. As their active ingredients (which are never disclosed on the packaging), they may contain hydroquinine and mercury.
You might not be familiar with hydroquinine, but you should know that mercury is really bad for you. Both of these compounds are incredibly toxic and may also cause irritation, swelling, and (ironically) skin discoloration.
Not convinced mercury is bad for you? Why not read what happened to the Chinese emperor who kept drinking mercury-based immortality potions? Spoiler alert: they made him a lot less immortal.
7. Fat-Dissolving Injections
There are many fat-dissolving chemical injections available that promise what sounds great on paper. You won’t have to sweat with exercise or suffer a grueling diet – just get a couple of jabs and watch your fat melt away!
However, there’s currently a single FDA-accepted fat-dissolving injection, and it’s only used for getting rid of double chins. Injecting it anywhere else, or using any other similar product may have gruesome results.
You are getting your living tissue melted away with chemicals, after all. Just some of the things you might suffer as a consequence are excessive scarring, skin discoloration and deformation, cysts, or tissue damage to places you never intended.
8. Allograft Adipose Matrix Injection
Allograft adipose matrix injection is one heck of a name. But what does it mean? Well, this treatment has a more easily understandable nickname.
It’s called “cadaver fat.”
The treatment is exactly what it sounds like. You could plump up those saggy spots by getting yourself injected with fat from dead organ donors.
These are all currently available “treatments,” but doing bizarre stuff for beauty is not a modern invention. For more cosmetic insanity, check out our list of 9 bizarre beauty trends from the past.