A young woman’s head ballooned to twice its normal size the day after colouring her hair and she had to be rushed to the hospital’s emergency suffering from a severe allergic reaction to hair dye.

The doctor said I was lucky to be alive and that they had got to me just in time

Daniela Carabott Pawley, 20, spent three days in hospital after the swelling spread to her eyes and face – she was shocked when she saw the reflection of an ‘alien’ staring back at her from the mirror.

“At hospital I felt like I was on show as staff popped in to see me, finding it hard to believe how my head could have swelled to such proportions,” she said.

Ms Carabott Pawley, an undergraduate, decided to share her story with The Sunday Times in the hope of raising awareness that dyeing hair is not necessarily a harmless beauty treatment and, although the incidence is not high, chemicals in hair colour may land people in hospital.

In extremely rare cases, allergic reactions to a particular chemical in hair dye – para-phenylenediamine (PPD) – can lead to death. Just last week, The Belfast Telegraph reported that a 17-year-old died after suffering a fatal fit soon after dyeing her hair.

For Ms Carabott Pawley the trauma started on October 1, when she went to the hairdresser to have her hair dyed purple black, ahead of starting her third-year at University.

The next morning she woke up feeling so dizzy and nauseous that she crawled back into bed. Initially, she blamed the mozzarella sticks she had shared with her friends the night before, but none of them developed her symptoms. That was when it clicked that the hair dye could be the culprit.

She had previously coloured her hair black using a home kit, and developed an irritation around her ear lobes, but this disappeared after two days.

“That time I wasn’t sure if it was an allergy or if I had applied it badly. So I just warned the hairdresser to keep the dye away from my skin – I never thought it would have such an effect,” Ms Carabott Pawley said.

She spent most of Sunday lying on the sofa. Her head started to swell gradually and at one point a “molten honey-like liquid”, possibly blood plasma, started pouring out of her head.

“The pain was muted, but it was a strange sensation. At that point I still felt in control,” she recalled.

She kept trying to wash out the hair dye, but her face kept puffing up. By the evening she was so bad her sister, who had just got home, was shocked to see her sudden transformation.

“That was when I really started worrying. My right eye had puffed up and I feared my face would never return to what it was,” she said.

She went to a polyclinic where the doctor prescribed steroids and antihistamines, but the medication failed to have an effect. She was lying on the sofa, exhausted and yearning to sleep, but her sister and mother had the presence of mind to keep her awake and prevent the risk of her body going into shock.

She was admitted to Mater Dei Hospital’s emergency department, and when the doctor saw her he said: “Here we go again.”

She learnt that just one week earlier a girl had been admitted with the same symptoms after dyeing her hair. It was clear she too was suffering from a similar allergic reaction.

“At that point all I could think of was how am I going to go to university the next day with such a swollen face. I was in denial and had not understood the gravity of the situation,” Ms Pawley Carabott said.

“The doctor said I was lucky to be alive and that they had got to me just in time,” she added.

Throughout her stay in hospital, her body kept trying to expel the dye by oozing the molten liquid and although the swelling would abate throughout the day, in the morning it was always worse.

“They kept assuring me my face would return to normal but I was scared.”

Looking back, Ms Pawley Carabott recalled how some time ago she had a henna tattoo and developed blisters and rash, but it was only now that she connected this to the hair dye.

In 2005, the Consumer and Competition Division had carried out inspections to establish if PPD was being used by local henna tattooists to make the dye darker.

According to EU rules, producers are allowed to use up to six per cent of PPD in hair products, and although it is found in two thirds of hair dyes, it has been outlawed in Germany, France and Sweden.

When contacted, dermatologist Lawrence Scerri said hairdressers should be aware of this harmful chemical and ideally choose PPD-free hair dye that was available on the market.

Dr Scerri said reactions to PPD were not uncommon, but people who have never had a reaction to hair dye should not be alarmed.

The hair dye used on Ms Pawley Carabott does not actually list PPD as one of its ingredients, but it does include another chemical (toluene-2.5-diamine), that is related to PPD.

She has yet to establish the ingredient that caused the unusual swelling and she will be going to Boffa Hospital in the coming days to undergo a patch test.

Despite the standard warning on the packets of hair dyes to do an allergy test 48 hours before application, a test was not carried out on Ms Carabott Pawley, and she is urging people not to skip this procedure.