When we buy health products from major retailers, we do so with the expectation that they will be safe to use.
That’s a pretty reasonable assumption, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, some product packaging is easier to tamper with than others, and not everyone holds the safety of the general public in high regard.
On July 23rd, a young woman named Ashley purchased a bottle of Pantene shampoo from a Walmart in New Richmond, Wisconsin.
“I have to share because tonight has been very, very traumatic for me,” Ashley wrote in a Facebook post. “You don’t think to check your shampoo or conditioner once you buy it, well tonight that changed for me. I just went on with my normal Sunday routine, got in shower, shampoo, and conditioned my hair, and got out.”
“Something was different and didn’t smell the greatest.”
When Ashley went back in the shower to wash her hair a second time in order to get the smell out, it began to fall out in massive clumps.
“My hair is still falling out and I know will continue to,” the post continued, “I can’t trust anything anymore. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
A trip to the ER ensured that Ashley didn’t suffer from extensive chemical burns, but her hair continued to fall out.
“Attention new Richmond Walmart shoppers,” her mother Taffy Jo wrote in a Facebook post of her own, “be aware of shampoo and conditioner you buy there as my daughter Ashley Rose bought some 2 days ago…As I speak she is losing hair and crying!! Conditioner below this conditioner is supposed to be white, but this is an ugly pink color.”
“Someone mixed Nair in the conditioner bottle.”
The emergency room confirmed that a hair removal cream was mixed into the conditioner, as it smelt similar to Nair and took about ten minutes to begin burning Ashley’s scalp.
Ashley lost so much hair that she was forced to shave her head.
“This is me Saturday heading to a family event,” she wrote on her Facebook, “My hair was how I loved it and made me feel like myself….if you swipe left…..My hair is gone. Emotions are real. Anxiety attacks more than ever this evening. I’m scared.”
“I don’t wanna go in public.”
“Tomorrow I go back to work and I’m very anxious,” she continued. “My emotions have never been so high. I love my job and people but I’m scared.”
The young woman is determined to use the unfortunate event as a way to warn others.
“My only intentions for sharing are to prevent it from happening to anyone else,” she writes. “Check your bottles where ever you get them, nothing can be trusted anymore.”
Taffy Jo and her daughter have yet to receive an update from local authorities regarding the case.
Both confirmed via Facebook that police have been contacted, and that the New Richmond Walmart will be looking at security footage in order to see when the bottle was tampered with.
h/t: Facebook
