Using fake make-up glued woman’s eyes together

When Rosy Ferry found the limited edition Dior eye shadow palette she had been searching for on eBay, she was delighted. Not only had it sold out at her local department store, but this was £15 cheaper.

‘Although it was selling for £30 rather than the RRP of about £45, the eBay seller said it was because she had opened it to test the colours,’ says Rosy, a 28-year-old writer from the Scottish Borders.

‘That seemed reasonable and as it was a UK-based seller with good feedback, I decided to buy it.’

But when the package turned up, it was covered with Chinese customs stickers and was missing the velvet pouch and outer box that Dior cosmetics are sold with.

Despite that, Rosy reasoned that it looked OK and didn’t smell peculiar, so she decided to test it out. That night her eyes started to itch but it wasn’t until the next morning when she woke with her eyes glued together that she realised something was seriously wrong.

‘I had to bathe them to get them open,’ she recalls. ‘The lids were swollen, and my eyes were bloodshot. I was really worried that I’d caused myself serious damage.’

Too horrified by her appearance — and embarrassed by what had caused it — to leave the house, Rosy sent her husband to the pharmacy, and spent the next week religiously applying anti-bacterial eye drops.

‘Things started to improve, but for at least three weeks, it looked like I had burns around my tear ducts — the skin was all red and flaky and I couldn’t wear any eye make-up. I dread to think what was in the eye shadow that would have caused that sort of reaction.’

A department store saleswoman later compared Rosy’s palette with a sample of the genuine article and confirmed it was a fake. ‘I’ve learned my lesson,’ says Rosy. ‘I feel lucky it wasn’t anything more serious, but I certainly won’t be buying beauty products on eBay ever again.’

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