If you thought your week was bad, then you haven't heard Erika Augthun Shoolbred's beauty horror story yet. Shoolbred bought a blowdryer from the hair brand OraCorp on Amazon, purchasing the hot tool for less than $30. She must've thought it was a deal too good to be true... and she was right. Because as it turns out, Shoolbred hadn't purchased a blowdryer, but instead a flamethrower posing as one.
After receiving the hot tool, Shoolbred switched it on, only to watch it burst into flames. Naturally, she took to Facebook to share her nightmarish experience.
"Talk about a bad hair day! My new hair dryer (more like hair frier) from OraCorp on Amazon.com became a blow torch on its first use this morning," she wrote in the caption alongside a video of the fiery situation. "A small burn on my hand and an enormous smell to my master bath — the company has yet to respond to my complaint or videos."
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Quickly, her comments section flooded with responses. Shoolbred later updated her concerned friends with this: "Both Amazon and OraCorp. Amazon credited my account and gave me the contact info for the company but I have yet to hear from them. The drier was marketed as salon grade - the product has now been removed from Amazon's site. It is made in China - and was represented much like a JINRI drier. The box however says Paradise Twinklers. No paradise found here. I'm just glad it wasn't more horrific!"
Thankfully, Amazon has since removed the "salon-grade" dryer from its site, but unfortunately, some of Shoolbred's stealthy friends discovered that this isn't the first time something like has happened to an OraCorp customer. Despite the seemingly positive reviews for the brand's hot tools on Amazon, another customer left a comment similar to Shoolbred's incident.
"I had it less thank [sic] a month, and while using it, it caught fire," customer Lauren wrote in her one-star review. "Very disappointed, something severe could have happened to me or my mom while using it.” This was back in September of last year.
Luckily, Shoolbred wasn't seriously harmed, but hopefully this is a lesson to everyone that if a blowdryer arrives in box sketchier than the one that delivered your fake ID in college, maybe refrain from plugging it in.
Amazon has declined to comment to Refinery29 since removing the product from its site. We've reached out to Schoolbred and OraCorp and will update this post with their comments.