Bride cautions others before wedding day about risky beauty treatments: 'Pain wasn't worth it'

A bride-to-be who wanted to look "like a princess" on her wedding day ended up looking far worse than that after a severe allergic reaction to a fake eyelash treatment.

Polly Bibby, 26, an illustrator, decided to try classic eyelash extensions ahead of her big day compared to her usual minimal makeup look.

She had a patch test done, she said, according to Kennedy News & Media — and since she suffered no reaction, she went ahead with the procedure in early July, before her wedding day.

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After getting the treatment done — which cost her about $88, she said — she was initially happy with her "dressier" appearance.

Just a few hours after the appointment, however, her eyes became watery and sore. She shrugged it off as symptoms of hay fever.

But when her eyes started to sting and then stick together due to a yellow discharge, alarm bells began going off. She called an urgent care medical line and was advised to head to the nearest hospital emergency room.

A shocking photo shows her red, raw and swollen eyes. After being seen by a nurse in the eye unit at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Hinchingbrooke, Cambridge, it was confirmed she'd suffered an allergic reaction to the eyelash extensions.

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She was given a course of antibiotics and antihistamines, and told to wait three days for the swelling to go down before getting the false lashes removed.

"To keep the eyes safe, [artificial] lashes should be applied by an experienced aesthetician in a sanitary setting, with chemicals that are safe for your skin," said Rebecca J. Taylor, M.D., a board-certified ophthalmologist in Nashville, in a statement on the American Academy of Ophthalmology website.

"The procedure does come with risks, namely trauma to or infection of the eyelid or cornea; allergic reaction to the glue; and permanent or temporary loss of eyelashes."

Infection can also result, Taylor said, from inadequate hygiene in the salon or damage to the eye during application. 

Even though her skin is now slowly healing, Bibby of Cambridgeshire, in the United Kingdom, feared her eyes would still be red by the time she said "I do" to her to 29-year-old fiancé, Benjamin May. 

She said she's been sharing her experience to warn other brides about getting certain treatments so close to their big day.

"I don't wear that much makeup," she told Kennedy News & Media. "Getting married is the biggest day of your life, so I just wanted to test out different makeup and actually feel like a princess for the day."

She said it was a trial for her wedding, as she'd "never had my eyelashes done before."

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About four or five hours after the appointment, her partner looked at her eyes, she said, and thought they were a little red.

"By that evening, they had gone red, raw and were stinging. The only way I can describe [how I looked] is the man from 'The Goonies' with the big puffy eyes called Sloth. I just didn't look like myself. I looked like a different person."

She said her eyes were "burning," and "it got to the point where I was losing my vision and I couldn't see at all."

Every time she blinked, she said, her "eyes were sticking together as I had discharge building up [in] my eyes ... a sticky yellow discharge pretty similar to when babies have conjunctivitis."

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She said the medical staff who treated her were "quite taken back and shocked by it."

During the removal of the false lashes, she said it felt like "acid was being poured onto her face."

She said, "I was screaming, crying and tensing up. My eyes are still red, scabby and very 'rashy.' The eyelids themselves are really swollen, and I've still got quite blurry vision."

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She also said, "When people joke around and say things [can] go wrong [on your wedding day] — I didn't realize it would happen to me."

Ahead of her wedding, she said, "I won't be getting eyelash extensions for the big day. Going through that pain was not worth it. If I knew in hindsight, I'd just use mascara."

She added, "I'd hate for anyone else to go through this."