Woman’s beauty therapy warning as she is left with second degree burns

Melia Nielsen had been visiting a clinic for months to receive chemical peels while battling her spots but then had £75 microneedling to treat her acne scars in July in a bid to feel more ‘confident’.

However the 24-year-old claims her clinician started ignoring her messages when the ‘entirety’ of her left cheek swelled up and became ‘horrible’ and ‘purple’ – so was forced to dash to A&E.

Doctors reportedly confirmed it was a chemical burn and the payroll officer was forced to endure months of ‘soreness’ and has been left with a ‘huge scar’.

(Image: Kennedy News and Media)

Microneedling is a cosmetic procedure that uses tiny, sterile needles to puncture the skin to promote smoothness and toning.

Melia shared the horrifying photos documenting her ordeal on social media and claimed the burns were the result of ‘incorrect methods by the practitioner’.

She is now speaking out to urge others to ‘make sure to thoroughly research, have consultations and choose your skincare wisely’ to avoid anyone else suffering the same fate.

Melia, from Grimsby, Lincolnshire, said: “While she was doing it she was going over and over that same area to a point that it actually wore away the first one or two layers of my skin. So then it was essentially raw skin.

“At the time she never said anything about it but I was actually bleeding. She only said five or six days later over a message that she’d noticed that I was bleeding quite a bit.

“Because I was bleeding she was cleaning the area with, I don’t know if it was a toner or something, but it burned that brand new, raw skin.

“Afterwards there was a little patch in the middle where it wasn’t red, it was white. She just said to me to keep an eye on it and don’t use anything harsh on it.

“By the time I’d driven home, that patch of my face was weeping. I was like ‘surely this isn’t normal’. I was panicking the night that it happened. I washed it with water and didn’t put anything on it.”

She revealed she took herself to A&E the next morning after her injury had worsened and she discovered it was a chemical burn.

Melia said: “They confirmed it was a chemical burn. They gave me this water-based cream that I had to apply every hour for 10 days.

“Thankfully it didn’t get infected but they did say if the swelling hadn’t gone down after a couple of days I’d have to go back because it could be infected.

“They said what should’ve happened at the time is if she thought something wasn’t right she shouldn’t have carried on doing what she was doing. She shouldn’t have let me leave with my skin the way it was.”

The customer admitted she regrets getting the £75 cosmetic procedure as she ‘didn’t really need it’ and it will ‘never fully go away’ leaving her struggling to apply makeup.

Melia said: “It was painful. It was so sore for weeks. It was itchy, it was swollen, it was horrible.

“It was hard to go to work that Monday. When I woke up on Monday my face was so swollen it was all purple. It was horrible.

“I didn’t want to not go to work because of it but also I didn’t want to face people because I was in a front facing job. I didn’t want people coming in and asking questions.

“Even now if I rub my finger over it now it’s a completely different texture to the rest of my face. It’s never fully going away.

“The first time I put makeup on was only about a month ago. Because it’s such a sensitive area now, even wearing makeup for a day really made it flare up.”

The ordeal has permanently put her off cosmetic procedures and she now urges other people to do their research first.

Melia said: “I just want people to actually look into the background of who is doing things like that.”