Tessica Brown, 40, a mother-of-five, applied the industrial-strength spray glue on her hair after her hairspray ran out.
One woman whose video went viral on social media because of her hair transformation has finally been able to be free of it. Tessica Brown, 40, who applied Gorilla Glue spray adhesive on her hair when her hair spray ran out, has had a long few weeks. The Louisiana native had posted a TikTok video asking for advice on how to remove the adhesive from her hair. Instead, she became viral.
"I never was going to take this to social media. The reason I took this to social media was because I didn't know what else to do," she told ET. "And I know somebody out there could have told me something. I didn't think for one second when I got up the next morning it was gonna be everywhere."
Tessica, who was in a hurry to leave her home, used the product hastily and regretted it. The mother-of-five said that while she has used the industrial-strength adhesive before for other purposes, she didn't realize she won't be able to wash it out of her hair. However, even a month after applying the adhesive to her hair, it hadn't come out, which is when she panicked.
She used olive oil, tea tree oil, and other oils to try and remove the glue until she had to ask for help on social media. The morning after, she went to the emergency room at St. Bernard Parish Hospital in Chalmette, Louisiana. The medical professionals tried to remove the glue with "little acetone packs." The nail polish remover just made her scalp burn, she said. In the meantime, her video was garnering more views on social media and she came to be known as "Gorilla Glue Girl."
Some people have empathized with her situation while others judged her harshly over her choices. However, the 40-year-old was able to get out of this sticky situation after a surgeon offered to help her.
"I told my son today, 'I wish I could just go back,' because I'm over it. I'm over it," she said. "I'm usually the person that I don't care what people say. I just move at my own pace. I don't care what people say, but it's just getting to the point where people are on TV saying stuff about me."
"If you knew me, you wouldn't say half the stuff they are saying," she said, adding she didn't post the video for attention. "Then somebody said, 'Oh, she's just put that on her head on purpose just to get to here.' Who in their right mind would say, 'Oh well, let me just spray this in my head and become famous overnight?' Never!…Who would want them to do that? I needed somebody to tell me how to take this off, that's all it was."
She also revealed that it adversely affected her children, whose peers and teachers are talking about the incident. Her daughter also refused to let her do the child's hair. "I'm thinking she's joking and playing, but she didn't let me do it," said the 40-year-old.
The Louisiana mom then launched a fundraiser to get herself to Beverly Hills to have the glue removed from her hair. She is in Los Angeles "to get this glue out of my head finally," as per Harper's Bazaar. She saw plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Obeng. He told CBS Los Angeles that he could remove the glue with a "special chemical treatment." He promised to perform the $12,500 procedure at no cost to the woman.
The doctor carefully removed the adhesive during a four-hour surgery on February 11 and added that her recovery will take two to three months. The surgery was captured on video.
Her harrowing saga came to an end after the glue was removed from her hair.
She intends to donate half of what she received through GoFundMe.
References:
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/hair/a35480003/gorilla-glue-girl-hair-explainer-tessica-brown/
