This Woman's Eyebrow Microblading Horror Story Is The Scariest We've Seen Yet

Update: The salon owner of Skincare Laser Clinic and technician Iain Cleveland has officially responded to Amanda Coats' claims, stating that she believes the adverse reaction at hand was all "due to an allergy to one of the supplementary products." Cleveland assures us that the procedure took place in a sterilised environment with safe equipment.

"SLC cares deeply about all its clients and delivering quality outcomes whilst abiding by strict industry best practice, standards, and regulations," she says. The post has been removed from Facebook.

Lena Dunham swears the treatment is the culprit behind her two "perfect, multidimensional" brows. It went so well for Bella Thorne, she documented the whole thing on Snapchat. But alas, not all microblading (a.k.a. brow tattooing) sessions go according to plan.

Today's cautionary tale comes to us by way of Amanda Coats of Melbourne, Australia, who shared her experience at a salon named Cosmetics Tattoo Victoria in a Facebook post that has since been hidden. "I ended up with a severe infection from clinic and the skin was just falling away and my eyes blew up," she wrote, referencing a series of photos. Coats then claimed that the eyebrow specialist was very "rushed, going in and out of the room attending to other clients during my procedure and also doing another eyebrow tattoo at the same time," and that she didn't switch into new gloves in between clients. (We've reached out to the salon for comment.) If you can barely sit through a PG-13 horror movie without squirming in your seat, well, you might want to stop while you're ahead.

By Coats' account, what happened next is the stuff of nightmares: The area around her eyebrows swelled, getting redder and more inflamed by the day, until the skin on her face eventually peeled off onto her pillow. "My eyes were so swollen I couldn't drive," Coats told the Mirror. "I couldn't even take my children to school because of the swelling, the pain, and the pus in my eyes. It was awful."

While the salon has yet to respond to Coats' claims, Umbreen Sheikh, an eyebrow specialist and founder of Wink Brow Bar, says that these kinds of reactions could be the result of an allergy to the numbing cream used beforehand or the actual pigment. "The most important thing is to choose a microblade artist very carefully and book a full consultation prior to the treatment." Another piece of wisdom: Avoid cheap sales or discounts. "An experienced specialist can charge upwards of $1000 and clients sometimes try to get a 'deal,' but this can lead to a horrible result that is potentially life-changing," she adds.

So if you're struggling with a barely-there set of arches, consider this a reminder to do your due diligence and find yourself a qualified technician before bringing in the big guns (literally).