A 50-year-old man was just trying to look younger for his 38-year-old wife when he decided to dye his graying beard — but he ended up suffering a severe allergic reaction that sent him to the hospital.
Scott Theodore says he “could have died” after waking up with pus on his pillow, and rather than earning a starry-eyed look from his wife, Katrina, he was told that he looked like the character Sloth from the 1985 cult classic “The Goonies.”
A month ago, Scott, a delivery driver, decided to color his beard black for the first time in a bid to conceal his gray hairs to look younger for Katrina.
He claims to have followed the instructions on the L’Oreal Men Expert box and did a patch test behind his ear, but he woke up the next morning feeling like someone had hit him on the head with an anvil.
After seeing his swollen face — which Scott thinks made him look like the cartoon character Popeye — Katrina told him to rush to hospital.
“I tried to dye my beard to look younger for my wife because she’s 12 years younger than me,” Scott, from Nashua, New Hampshire, told NeedToKnow.
“I had a few grey hairs I wanted to get rid of, but it was a disaster.
“I woke up the next morning and Katrina said I looked like Sloth from the Goonies. She said I needed to get to the hospital.
“My white pillow was yellow with pus and I felt like I’d been hit on the head with an anvil. It was awful.
“I thought I looked like Popeye because my head was so swollen. I was dizzy, groggy, lethargic and not aware of my surroundings.”
Doctors told Scott he had gone into anaphylactic shock.
“When I got to the hospital they knew I was in anaphylactic shock straight away and rushed me in,” he said. “I could have died.”
He claims doctors told him that the symptoms were a reaction to the beard dye.
After being treated with antibiotics, Scott was released from the hospital that same day, but he had to take 10 days off work to recover.
He says that he reached out to L’Oreal’s customer service via phone two days later, but claims the brand has not offered an apology or any compensation for the days he had to take off work.
“I want to raise awareness so that people know there are chemicals in these dyes,” he said. “Nobody should almost die from a hair product.”
