40+ Women Who Know Why “Beauty Is Pain” Better Than Anyone

While some of our beauty mishaps so far have caused real, physical pain, this one is more about emotional pain. After all, your stomach really sinks when a $40 tube of foundation ends up splattered all over your mirror instead of your face.

This can happen seemingly by accident, but it’s more likely to happen if you’ve recently been on an airplane and your foundation has been subject to changing air pressure. Regardless, there’s hardly any way to save foundation in a situation like this.

As you’ll see throughout this list, eyelash curlers aren’t to be trusted. They already look like tiny Victorian torture devices, so it’s no wonder they’re capable of leaving your eyelid half bald. This person was trying to end up with gorgeous curled lashes and instead walked away with a missing chunk of hair in the center of their eye.

We feel for this person, and not just because they ripped out their lashes. This will be really difficult to hide because there’s nothing to put mascara on!

This particular beauty mishap actually ended up going viral, after someone reached for Original Source Mint Shower Gel when their usual product ran out. Naturally, tea tree oil has a very strong, almost medicinal scent, and mint has a similar tingly sensation. When this person decided to get clean using this shower gel, they used it in places where they shouldn’t have.

This person actually described their experience with Original Source Mint Shower Gel as giving them PTSD. Let that be a warning to you all.

It’s hard to look at this picture and not burst out laughing. We’re sorry – we know it’s a beauty disaster – but this person’s pink expression is just too much for us to deal with. As you might have guessed, this painful beauty mess came about when someone slathered Lush Razzle Dazzle bath oil all over their skin.

As it turns out, this particular bath oil is supposed to be diluted and added to the tub, not pasted directly onto human skin.

This is the first of several times on this list where we’ll praise the humble patch test. For those not yet in the know, a patch test is when you get a patch of product applied to your skin before a hair or beauty appointment.

This means that you can see if you’re allergic to the ingredients before they’re slathered all over your body. This person went to a beautician to have false lashes applied and soon ended up with a burning, bald lower lash line.

Anyone who spends time on Twitter already knows about Tessica Brown. Yes, this is the woman who reached for Gorilla Glue Spray Adhesive when she ran out of regular hairspray. Let’s just take a minute to note that regular hairspray and Gorilla Glue are not reasonable replacements for one another.

One is a commonly used beauty product, while the other is an industrial-strength home DIY product. Anyway, Brown ended up in the ER with a burning scalp and severe headaches.

This is a difficult home haircut to look at because this person has such gorgeous, thick, and lustrous hair. At least they’ll still have gorgeous, thick, and lustrous hair when it inevitably has to be trimmed into a bob because of this disaster.

What we’re looking at here is a quarantine haircut. We really hope this person at least tried to separate the hair before hacking into it. Either way, it’s truly a crime against hair, and should never be repeated.

We were genuinely surprised to see this picture and learn that a makeup mirror can actually catch on fire. This person left their makeup mirror next to the window, and it ended up reflecting the sunlight and causing a small fire. As you can see, the flames destroyed several items and left behind a pile of unsightly ash.

We’re not even sure how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Should mirrors be placed away from windows or sunlight? Is all our stuff going to catch on fire or go up in flames? Help us!

Thanks to bushy-browed models like Cara Delevingne, lots of women are in search of bigger and bolder eyebrows. There are several ways to achieve this, from full-on HD brows to a simple wax and tint. This person went to a salon and asked for a brow tint, wax, and thread.

Somewhere along the way, something went wrong, because eyebrows aren’t supposed to look like they do in this picture. When this person woke up, her eyebrows were red, itchy, and covered in scabs.

This example of women knowing when beauty is pain is absolutely hilarious. Basically, someone’s mom messaged them for help because she was struggling to attach her false eyelashes without her glasses on. So far, so reasonable.

However, when this mom sent her daughter a photograph of the situation, her daughter spotted an issue. Perhaps this mom was struggling because she was trying to glue a dead fly to her eyelid rather than a false lash. Truly disgusting, and truly hysterical.

In case you haven’t guessed already, this list is going to be full of some rather gruesome pictures. That includes a face covered in pus-filled pimples like this one. This image comes from a beauty blogger who went for a facial and ended up with increasingly terrible skin.

We’re pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Right after their facial, this person was pleased, but after several days her skin started to erupt in white-topped pustules.

Here’s another truly iconic woman that knows that beauty is pain. Tori Locklear went viral when she attempted to curl her hair and ended up burning off a chunk. The then 13-year-old exclaimed, “My hair just burnt off,” and the internet erupted into giggles.

More importantly, Tori Locklear taught us all that we must use heat protection spray and pay attention while using a curling wand. Amusingly, Locklear is now working on a hair tutorial with Pantene.

It’s hard to know what’s going on in this image, but there’s one thing for sure — those are some seriously questionable eyebrows. We assume that this person didn’t go to a salon for this look, because if they did, that salon should be closed down right away. Rather, we assume this person brushed their own eyebrows into straight, grassy strands.

However, why would anyone do this? These terribly feathered eyebrows are a beauty crime that just doesn’t make any sense.

When it comes to beauty and pain, waxing is one of the main culprits. After all, ripping hair out of your skin from the follicle is never going to be painless. Of course, some parts of the body are more sensitive than others.

Pulling hair from a hardy leg calf is nothing compared to removing the whiskers that might grow around your top lip. This person decided to wax their lip, and ended up with a nice red mustache. May we recommend hair removal cream in the future?

We’ve already seen a pink-skinned person, and here we have their purple-handed friend. This person has clearly decided to give themselves a couple of dye jobs and for some reason, isn’t using the gloves that are usually provided with a home dye kit.

There’s nothing else to say except that this person is going to have purple hands for a couple of weeks. That is, unless they get some lemon juice and olive oil and get scrubbing.

Now, we have to blame this person for their own beauty pain because they could’ve avoided it by just purchasing some waterproof mascara. However, we don’t all have the foresight to do such a thing. Perhaps this person had no idea that sweat plus black eyelash paste would lead to a streaked face, but hey, it does.

This is a particularly streaky face, so this woman must really have been going at it. In general, it’s best to just go barefaced when working out.

OK, there’s a story behind this one. Here we have a beauty blogger that recommended a homemade facemask made with cinnamon, claiming it has “antioxidant, regenerating, and purifying properties.” However, cinnamon is actually not the best ingredient to put on the skin, because it can cause burns.

Actually, it’s an allergenic plant, which is why it’s not used much in skincare. Sadly, lots of users tried out this mask and ended up with burnt, irritated skin. Listen, when it comes to face masks, there should be no pain!

What we have here is someone who wanted their brows to be microbladed, but ended up with an unmitigated catastrophe. Truly, we can’t stress enough how awful these brows are. Microblading is effectively an eyebrow tattoo where hair strokes are created using a tiny blade.

The process is supposed to leave you with realistic-looking, full brows. As is abundantly clear here, these microbladed brows are not done correctly. These strokes are far too large and straight to pass for strands of hair.

When many people found themselves indoors over the past year, they decided to try giving themselves a haircut or a manicure. However, these aren’t easy tasks, and they’re normally performed by people that are trained and skilled.

In the case of a manicure, nails must be shaped and buffed before they’re painted with multiple coats of polish and cured individually. This person seems to have missed their nail and colored over the lines in almost every case. What can we say?

Alright, here’s the first person on our list that became a victim of the “Kylie Lip Challenge.” This viral trend saw teenagers creating a vacuum using lids, small jars, or bottles in order to get inflated lips like the youngest Kardashian sibling, Kylie Jenner.

At the time, the reality star had undergone lip enhancement but maintained to the public that she was simply overlining her lips with makeup. Alas, many teenagers that tried this ended up with red, bruised, swollen, and rash-covered faces.

We’ve already seen Tessica Brown and her terrible decision to use Gorilla Glue instead of hairspray, and here we have something similar. This adorable little girl decided to apply some false lashes, but she reached for super glue instead of eyelash glue.

We can only imagine the look on her mom’s face when she found out. We don’t need to tell you that it’s a terrible idea to put superglue anywhere on your body. It’s basically asking for pain.

Here we are again to talk about the importance of patch tests. This person didn’t get one before dying her hair, and had a huge allergic reaction. As you can see, this person’s entire head swelled up, and they unsurprisingly ended up in the emergency room.

As with some other allergic reactions on this list, this person’s symptoms didn’t start until the next day. Also, this person had used this particular dye before, making a patch test even more important!

Now, here’s a horror story for you. Many women with long hair wear a hair tie around their wrist. It’s an easy place to keep it, and it means you’ll never have to look far when you’re in a need of a scrunchie. However, there’s a chance that this innocent practice could lead to a whole world of pain.

This person noticed a bump on her arm and thought it was a spider bite. In fact, it was a large abscess caused by bacteria stuck underneath the hair tie.

We’re getting into gruesome territory here with this picture of a burnt and battered arm. This picture comes from a 16-year-old British teen who decided to get a henna tattoo while on vacation in Turkey. Alas, the fetching dreamcatcher design quickly started scabbing and causing painful burns.

It turns out the dye used in this tattoo — p-paraphenylenediamine — is not regulated by the US FDA or the European Union. That means that this synthetic dye will likely cause permanent scarring.

Let’s move to something a little bit lighter with our next image. Here we have the aftermath of a cat that isn’t particularly impressed by makeup culture. That’s right, the kitty responsible for this mess is sick of the high standards placed on women’s physical appearance, and wanted to take a stand.

This feline whirlwind expressed their disgust with modern-day beauty culture by throwing all of their owner’s makeup brushes around the bathroom. That’ll show them!

Those that keep on top of their hair trends know that balayage is a highlighting technique where a colorist hand-paints color onto the hair. The result is a blended sun-kissed effect that almost looks natural. What we have in this picture is far from balayage — it’s blasphemous.

Balayage is a skilled technique, meaning not everyone can just pick up a box of dye and give it a go. As always, if you want professional-looking hair, then go to a professional.

We’ve already seen one victim of the Kylie Jenner lip challenge, and here we have another. This challenge sees people suck their lips into round objects in the hopes that they’ll end up with a perfect pout. More often than not, they end up with bruises, swollen lips, and itchy skin.

After this viral challenge did the rounds, beauty companies started selling official lip enhancers. These products came with instructions and were less dangerous than teens making up their own rules.

When it comes to home hair dye kits, it’s good to be prepared and organized in advance. This means having containers, gloves, and multiple surfaces available to avoid scenes like this.

Once you’ve gotten one smear of bright pink dye on the bathroom, then chances are you’ll just give up and splatter the stuff everywhere. It’s hard to look at this image and not think about all the cleaning products required to scrub these pink stains off.

Shaved undercuts are pretty popular, and some people like to have patterns or designs etched into the shaved section of their hair. For some bold fashionistas, this means leopard print patches, and for others, it’s the logo of their favorite sports team. Each to their own, eh?

This person went to the salon wanting a striking geometric pattern shaved into their undercut. Instead, they walked away with these random, blurry lines. Is it just us, or does the bottom section look like chicken feet?

There are all sorts of painful beauty disasters that can happen at a salon. One of the most common is the hairstylist not listening to what you want, or not being able to deliver what you’ve asked for. Of course, some people come in with wild expectations, but others are genuinely looking for a striking new do.

The woman in this image was after a chic, bohemian, messy braid. Unfortunately, she ended up with more of a bird’s nest. Our sympathies…

Beauty blenders are pretty important to the people who use them. If you’ve committed to purchasing a beauty blender, it’s usually your go-to makeup application tool. Beauty blender users aren’t here for foundation brushes or fingertip application — they’re all about that compact and squishy makeup sponge. Beauty blenders, forever!

So, imagine the pain this beauty blender owner must have felt when she realized her dog had chewed on her beloved sponge. Clearly, past its best, this blender has blended its final face.

And while we’re talking about blending, let’s not forget the cardinal sin of poorly blended bronzer. As we can see in this image, badly blended bronzer makes a face look ashen, unnatural, and outright ridiculous.

Rather than slathering bronzer all over your cheeks, draw a short line outwards from the center of your ear. Then, it’s all about the buffing and the blending – and using the right tool. As with all makeup, it’s usually best to gradually apply products.

Women go to great lengths to alter aspects of their appearance. Whether it’s playing with makeup, dying our hair different colors, or painting our nails — we’re invested in the process. However, some of these are messier and more painful than others.

While fake tan can make us look fabulous, it tends to rub off on clothing and soft furnishings. This means that fake tan fans can wake up with a perfectly orange silhouette of themselves on their bedsheets. A masterpiece!

When it comes to charcoal toothpaste, there’s a bit of a debate about whether it’s safe or not. Some say that the mild abrasive does whiten teeth, whereas others claim it simply weakens your tooth enamel. Regardless, charcoal toothpaste hasn’t exactly gone to plan for this person.

We assume this mess was made with charcoal powder, as it really seems to have gotten everywhere. Perhaps this person dipped their whirring electric toothbrush in the pot without thinking about the results. Happy cleaning!

Here we are again, going on about the importance of patch tests. With pictures like this, can you blame us? This snap was taken by Tracie Hashton, part of a group of women who sued hair brand Wen. The brand is big in the “no-poo” non-shampooing world, but clearly, its products weren’t doing what they were supposed to.

The hair company denies any claims that their products cause harm, but they’re being sued by over 200 women. Patch test people!

Here’s another woman who really experienced the notion that “beauty is pain.” This lady bought a box of cheap hair dye online, and the instructions weren’t available in English. Despite not knowing exactly how to use the product, this woman slathered it onto her scalp.

As we’ve seen with other allergic reactions to dye, she ended up with a blistering scalp, raw skin, and bald patches. After checking what was in the dye, this woman was horrified to hear she had slapped multiple non-approved allergens onto her head.

Cosmetics company Two Faced makes a popular eyeshadow palette that looks and smells like chocolate. It’s called “The Chocolate Bar,” and it features chocolate-y shades of eyeshadow set into a bar-shaped tray. For that reason, we can understand why this mischievous little one has mistaken it for the real thing and really gone to town.

Of course, for the owner of this palette, the situation is a little more painful. That’s $40 of eyeshadow that’s now full of tiny little fingerprints.

To be honest, the fact that many women have eyelash or nail glue on their person at any given time must lead to lots of painful beauty mishaps. We’ve seen just what can go wrong with a tiny tube of glue, so perhaps we need a better way of packaging sticky products.

Should they all come in neon-colored tubes or something? The person who took this snap confused their protecting lip crème with a tube of lash adhesive. That couldn’t have tasted good.

Remember that gory picture of a henna tattoo gone wrong? Well, this one is much worse. As you can see, someone had a terrible reaction with a home tattoo removal kit, leaving them with scabbing, bubbling flesh. Before we proceed, it’s best not to order one of these kits online as they’re still being investigated and approved.

For now, stay away from anything that contains corrosive chemicals. This particular kit contained TCA, a corrosive ingredient that burns off skin. Now, this is pain.

And now for something a little lighter…literally. These masks are fun to put on and they do what they say they do. Considering some of the dangerous items on this list, that’s pretty successful. These carbonated bubble masks get bigger once they’re on the skin as the mask oxidizes with the air.

Yes, you may look like a foam version of the abominable snowman, but at least your skin won’t fall off. Supposedly, these bubble masks help to exfoliate dead skin, unclog pores, and provide skin-improving ingredients.

It’s time for another lockdown manicure. Or, in this case, someone who’s in need of a lockdown manicure. This is the unpleasant sight of a grown-out manicure, where once-perfect colored gel polish used to sit neatly on a nail. Now, it’s a lumpy, chipped mess.

Most people would have picked the polish off at this stage, so we have to commend this person for not doing that. We advise soaking the nails in a tray of acetone until the offending polish is gone.

Sigh. We’ve already blamed one Kardashian-Jenner for a painful beauty trend on this list, and now we’re going to do it again. At one point, several members of the famous family hawked waist trainers just like these ones. These were essentially updated corsets, and promised to “train” the waist into being smaller. Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

Victorian corsets used to cause women’s internal organs to shift around, and caused terrible muscle pain. Waist trainers aren’t much better, and haven’t been proven to work at all.

You know, for some reason, we feel relieved when we look at this picture. This manicure is so terribly done that there’s no point getting upset about it — it is what it is. Plus, they’re the ones that are stuck with five layers of thick nail polish on each of their fingertips. Have fun getting that off!

As we’ve said already, being a nail technician is a skilled job. That means that not everyone can do it. It requires patience, precision, and a steady hand.

In John Hughes’ final movie Curly Sue Alisan Porter plays the curly-haired homeless kid with a heart of gold. For a while, the character stood in for anyone with curly hair, like this woman with Sue-like ringlets.

Honestly, we’re obsessed with the expression on this woman’s face as she looks at her hair — it’s absolutely priceless. Admittedly, this isn’t the best work we’ve seen with a curling iron. We just hope it’s a temporary job and not actually permed.

When people bleach their own hair, they often put a plastic bag on top of it and then lightly blow-dry the area. Salons also do this, but with plastic bonnets rather than grocery bags. The thing is, when you put a bag on your head and apply heat, it can transfer the plastic logo already printed on the bag.

That’s how this woman ended up with “Walmart” plastered across her hair. This actually happens quite often, and thankfully it usually just washes out.