Girl left half blind after reaction from Kmart eye mask
A BRISBANE teen has severe facial swelling after using a $3 eye mask she bought at Kmart, her mother claims.
A BRISBANE mum claims her teenage daughter has been left half-blind after a $3 Kmart eye mask allegedly caused a severe allergic reaction.
Clare Boulton, 45, claims her 14-year-old daughter Angel was left in agony with severe facial swelling after buying the “firming” product from the discount department store in Loganholme, south of the city, on Saturday.
Ms Boulton said her aspiring beautician daughter has been unable to attend school, open her left eye or sleep through the burning pain since using the mask for just five minutes on Saturday.
Ms Boulton is now calling for the beauty product to be pulled off the shelves and claims the matter was “brushed aside” when she raised it with Kmart — and said she was only offered a $6 refund.
Kmart has confirmed it is investigating and said customer safety was their “utmost priority”.
Ms Boulton said: “I figured it would go down, but it’s just gotten worse. Angel has been using eye packs all night, antihistamines and Panadol but she’s just been crying in pain.
“We went in to the store on Monday and I said, ‘Look what you’ve done to my daughter’s eye.’ They said they were busy and just offered me a $6 refund.
“I said to them, ‘Don’t you think you should take it off the shelves until you get this all cleared?’ Shouldn’t they be doing more testing before stocking this stuff?’
“They are just brushing it aside. They thought I would be happy with a $6 refund. I’m definitely planning to be taking this further.”
The packaging of the Raspberry Leaf Botanical Eye Mask advises users to leave the product under their eyes for 15 to 20 minutes.
The 14-year-old claims she only left the product on for five minutes as an experiment but woke up the following morning with both eyes severely swollen.
The swelling went down over her right eye but the teenager said she is still unable to open her left eye.
Ms Boulton claims her daughter’s GP has since confirmed the swelling is a result of the eye mask and the mum alleges Kmart employees told her it was a newly stocked product.
She added: “Angel does this stuff all the time but she has never had a reaction like this. She wants to be a beautician so she loves to experiment with this stuff.”
A Kmart spokeswoman said the company had not received any “direct notifications” from customers around the product, but confirmed they had launched an investigation.
The spokeswoman said: “The safety of our customers is our utmost priority. We would like to request the customer contact our customer service team so we can assist them with this investigation.”