Reality star Tilly Whitfeld has turned her painful beauty mistake into a new business.
The former Big Brother Australia contestant is preparing to launch her own at-home freckle brand after a TikTok beauty trend left her with severe facial scarring, an infection, and temporary loss of sight in one eye.
Whitfeld, who once tried to tattoo freckles onto her face using sewing needles and ink, said she has since spent thousands of dollars trying to repair the damage.
“Back in the day, young girls would do almost anything to fade their freckles. These fake ones look fake,” one person commented.
Tilly Whitfeld tried a viral TikTok freckle hack and ended up in a hospital
Whitfeld’s ordeal began after she saw a TikTok video showing someone creating freckles at home.
The idea was to use sewing needles to prick the skin and add ink so the marks would look like natural freckles.
Whitfeld decided to try it herself.
“I saw a TikTok viral video on a girl tattooing freckles on her own face at home, and I basically copied her,” she explained on the Mirror Mirror 2022 episode.
“They looked cute. I saw other people liking it. I saw people commenting how well it had worked for them,” she said.
She bought brown tattoo ink from eBay and used ink-covered needles on her cheeks and nose. At first, she thought everything was fine because the process did not hurt.
“It didn’t hurt at all, so I didn’t think I should stop,” Whitfeld told The New York Times in 2021.
But copying a viral video turned out to be very different from watching one.
Whitfeld’s face was left scarred, she became seriously ill from an infection, and she temporarily could not see from one eye.
The problem was that the ink she bought was reportedly counterfeit and contained high levels of lead.
Her skin later became badly infected. Her face swelled, the skin developed deep scarring and dark pigmentation, and the swelling became so severe that she temporarily lost sight in one eye.
She eventually needed hospital treatment.
Whitfeld later shared photos of her damaged skin on Instagram to explain why she had been covering her face with a blue clay mask while appearing on Big Brother Australia.
“I literally shoved needles deep into my skin,” she wrote, explaining that the marks were not simply a rash.
She also admitted that she had tried to copy a beauty procedure she had seen online.
“Please please don’t try any ‘DIY’ or ‘at home’ beauty procedures,” Whitfeld warned. “I ended up in hospital with temporary loss of vision in my eye due to swelling and was very sick from the infection.”
Her message was, “Leave it to the professionals.”
Whitfeld revealed she spent thousands trying to repair the damage of the hack
Whitfeld said she was left with deep scarring and very dark pigmentation. She later underwent treatments including laser procedures, enzyme peels, and microdermabrasion in an attempt to improve her skin.
At one point, she said the treatment had already cost her around $10,000. In another account of her experience, she said her medical bills had reached almost $12,000.
Despite everything, she said the surface of her skin remained smooth, and she was fortunate not to develop keloid scars.
But the pigmentation was still obvious.
The experience also became a lesson in how quickly a viral beauty trend can turn dangerous.
As gastroenterologist Dr. Niket Sonpal told The New York Times, social media can give people advice from people who are not qualified to give it.
“You have a lot of people claiming to be experts who have no real consequences for giving really bad advice,” he said.
Despite her own experience with a DIY freckle trend, Whitfeld is now working on a business built around fake freckles
Whitfeld said she wants to create an at-home freckle line that people can use without doing what she did to her own face.
“I’ve done so many dumb things like DIY myself, so we are just starting a whole DIY brand at home,” she told news.com.au.
The line was expected to launch by the end of the year, according to the information provided.
Rather than using needles and tattoo ink, the idea is to give people a way to create the freckled look without damaging their skin.
Whitfeld’s business plans come after years of trying to deal with the consequences of her own experiment.
The freckle incident was not the only unusual beauty trend Whitfeld tried
During the TV show Mirror Mirror, which looked at the effects of social media, she also demonstrated a strange facial routine involving PVA glue.
Whitfeld applied the glue to her face despite the product’s safety instructions warning against putting it on skin and near the eyes.
She joked about the warning before continuing with treatment.
The segment showed how easily online trends can make unusual beauty ideas look normal, especially when people see others doing them without immediate consequences.
Whitfeld also tried other unconventional methods as she looked for ways to improve her damaged skin.
At one point, she shared a video of herself getting a “snail facial,” with live snails placed on her face.
She warned viewers not to copy that either, explaining that the snails were purchased from a breeder and that the treatment was supervised.
“Please do not attempt this at home,” she wrote.
Although Whitfeld has experimented with several unusual beauty ideas, she has been especially clear about not copying her freckle tattoo attempt.
“Wouldn’t henna work all the same?” questioned one user
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