A Brighton mother has warned against wearing popular lip-plumping glosses, after one of her kisses left a painful burn on her young daughter’s cheek.
Sarah Davies, 41, applied a £26 asset-enhancing product before taking her eight year-old daughter, Ava, to a birthday party last week.
Two hours later, she gave her little girl a kiss on the cheek and was shocked to see an angry, red mark appear almost immediately.
Within a minute, the mark was ‘hot to the touch’ and ‘burning’, and she feared it would blister.
Panicked, the healthcare assistant washed the product off with water and rushed to the pharmacist for help.
The chemist offered antihistamines and Sudocrem to soothe the burning sensation of the rash.
Luckily the mark went down within a few days, but Ms Davies said the patch of skin remains a little red.
‘If that was a newborn baby it could have been awful,’ she said.
Sarah Davies rushed her eight year-old daughter to the pharmacist after she suffered a painful, red rash in reaction to a ‘lip plumping’ gloss.
Now, she wants to warn others of the potential harms of the cosmetic products, which are often touted as a ‘natural’ alternative to lip fillers by social media influencers.
Most lip plumpers, including the one used by Ms Davies, contain the plant derivative capsicum, which is in chilli peppers, and makes the lips and skin ‘tingle’.
It does this by encouraging the widening of blood vessels, allowing more blood to flow through and temporarily boosting the volume of the lips.
However the chemical in capsicum, capsaicin, is potent and is known to cause burning, stinging, redness and itching in some people when it makes contact with the skin.
The brand behind Ms Davies’ lipgloss, Too Faced, admitted that sensitivies to their product — the Lip Injection Lip Gloss — ‘vary from person to person’.
‘We suggest reviewing the ingredients with your health care provider to determine if it’s suitable for your use,’ the brand recommends.
Worryingly, Ms Davies said she couldn’t feel any product on her lips at the point she kissed her daughter.
The product label contains a warning to parents, advising them to keep it away from children
Ms Davies is not the first mother to warn of the potential harm of the Too Faced lip boosting products
‘And it immediately came up red. I just didn’t think after two hours it would still do that.’
However, the product’s label states not use the product anywhere but your lips, and to keep it away from children.
But Ms Davies said she never saw these warnings as she’d thrown the packaging away.
‘I’m not the only idiot,’ she said. ‘There needs to be clearer labels. If I can do it, anyone can.’
Ms Davies is not the first mother to have warned about the potential harm of Too Faced lip-plumping products to childrens’ skin.
Other women have taken to Facebook to warn of the risks — including one who left ‘raised, red marks’ all over her nephew’s face after kissing him.
‘WARNING! If you’re going to use the Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme, don’t kiss your kids,’ the Aussie woman warned on Facebook.
Another said her son broke out in hives after reacting to the lip gloss.
‘My sister gave him a face wash and we monitored him. The red reaction seemed to dissipate within a couple of hours,’ she told Yahoo.
‘It wasn’t until the next day they realised the lip product was to blame.’
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
