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Swollen, pus-filled nails after doing nails in Singapore

Belicia Sun (26 years old) also suffers from severe allergies. Her fingernails were tingling, swollen, and oozing pus. More than a week ago, after 3 hours of sitting in the nail salon, Belicia Sun (Singapore) finished a gel nail set to prepare for the opening of her crystal store. However, the experience quickly turned horrifying […]

Belicia Sun (26 years old) also suffers from severe allergies. Her fingernails were tingling, swollen, and oozing pus.

More than a week ago, after 3 hours of sitting in the nail salon, Belicia Sun (Singapore) finished a gel nail set to prepare for the opening of her crystal store.

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However, the experience quickly turned horrifying when the 26-year-old girl noticed she had a severe allergic reaction after getting her nails done, AsiaOne reported.

“Be careful when doing gel nails,” she warned on a TikTok video posted on October 12.

In the 30-second clip, Belicia said that after returning from the nail salon, one of her nails had peeled off the gel and the other fingers began to tingle.


After a week, the itching did not subside, even the fingertips were swollen. In the end, she had to peel off all the polish and cut the tips short.

The nightmare didn’t stop there.

“Things were getting worse,” she said in the video, capturing images of her nails described as “oozing” and having “vesicles, itching”.

Under the video’s comment section, Belicia added that she was in a lot of pain, couldn’t wash her hair and had to avoid touching her fingertips when holding objects.

The 26-year-old said she originally had contact dermatitis – an allergic reaction on the skin that often manifests as an itchy rash. Sometimes, these rashes become blisters and swell.


Belicia thinks her hands may have become infected because the nails are too short, allowing the gel polish to penetrate the skin.

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Certain substances in nail polish can cause skin allergies. Photo: Pexels.

Some people who watched her videos also reported experiencing similar dermatitis when applying gel nail polish at the salon. Others shared her experience of taking care of inflamed fingers, not to apply too much steroid cream.

The British Association of Dermatologists once conducted a study and found that the chemical methacrylate – a key ingredient in acrylic nails, gels and gel polishes – was causing an “allergy epidemic” in the UK. UK and Ireland, according to information in the beauty publication Refinery29 in August 2018.


The results show that allergic reactions are more likely to occur when unapproved chemicals touch the skin, which can cause nails to peel off or a severe red, itchy rash. 2.4% of the people tested in the study were allergic to at least one type of methacrylate chemical.

In the study, Dr David Orton of the British Association of Dermatologists also said many people with this allergy remained undiagnosed.

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