Hair dye left Paddock girl blind and swollen - shocking pictures

Dec 1 2009 by John Knighton, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHEN Charlotte Gilchrist had her hair dyed before her school prom, she didn’t expect to be left temporarily blind.

A trainee hairdresser applied the hair colour with disastrous consequences for Charlotte – she suffered a severe allergic reaction causing her face to swell up and she was left with itching, blisters and unable to see for five days.

The injuries made her unrecognisable even to her own mother.

Now Charlotte, 21, of Paddock, is using her experience to warn others.

She was just 16 when the Huddersfield salon dyed her hair without carrying out a patch test on her skin to check for allergic reaction.

She took legal action against the owner of the salon and has just won a £2,000 payout plus legal expenses of £18,000.

Charlotte, mother to four-year-old Blake, said: “I was scared.

“Can you imagine waking up and not seeing anything just because of a hair dye?

“It was five days before I could see again and it was so worrying.

“I’d wake up in the middle of the night and my head was so itchy and painful.

“As a young girl you care about how you look – I felt embarrassed and so upset, I wouldn’t leave the house but the worst thing was the pain.”

Charlotte was a pupil at Colne Valley High School and was excited about getting her hair done in a fashionable brown/purple shade before her school prom in April 2004.

But her excitement soon disappeared when her head began to itch just after the dye was put on.

“They gave me a tail comb to itch it with,” she added. “But once they’d washed my hair my head began to burn.

“The next day I had to leave school and go back for a cooling treatment, but I was still in so much pain.

“I went to my school prom but I was in tears all night as my head hurt.”

But it was the following day when the full impact became known.

“I woke up and the right side of my face was swollen,” added Charlotte, who works for Bankstone Advantage in Brighouse as an account manager holder.

“There was a clear liquid coming out of my head, it was just awful.

“I went back to the salon and they said it must have been the shampoo I had been using – but I’d used the same one for years with no problems.”