I thought my HR manager was staring at work – I was so embarrassed when I checked my mirror on the ride home hours later
A TARGET shopper has spilled the details on a cringe-worthy beauty blunder caused by a lip balm she bought from the retail giant.
She said her ChapStick ended up being more mortifying than moisturizing when she realized what had happened to her face.
Kenny Paige, 28, of Columbia, Missouri recounted the experience with The U.S. Sun.
TARGET RUN
During her break from her retail job, Kenny headed to Target to grab lip balm after realizing she left home without her go-to tube.
“I was on my lunch break, I put [the ChapStick] on, I have lunch, and then afterward I re-applied because I want my lips to be hydrated and it’s super cold that day,” she said.
She added that the lip balm led to the first strange occurrence of the day — a strange look from human resources.
“I talked to the HR manager and she looked a little perplexed by me, but I didn’t think anything of it,” she added.
Kenny doesn’t interact much with people at work, spending most of her time in the backroom, but her interaction with HR felt a bit awkward.
“The HR lady, she looked at me, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at my lips,” she said.
It was only when she looked at herself in the car mirror later in the day with her boyfriend that she realized how her face looked for hours.
“I pull down the mirror and I look at myself, and that’s when I realized how bad it was.
“I literally started crying because I was laughing so hard. And no one said anything,” she added.
Kenny realized that her lip balm left an unsightly white cast on and around her mouth.
“I was embarrassed — really embarrassed — because my teeth looked so yellow because of the stark white,” she said.
“I was like, “Oh my God, I look like a crazy person.” And then I was like, ‘How did no one tell me?'”
THE CULPRIT
She said that she instantly realized that the new ChapStick was the issue, though it had gone undetected for two-and-a-half hours.
“I knew right away, because that’s always a fear — you never know if your ChapStick is going to leave some kind of tint or pigment,” she said.
But she didn’t recall anything feeling off when she applied the stark white product.
“It’s super dry in Missouri and when this happened it was super dry, so I was more focused on the relief. It felt good,” she said.
GOING VIRAL
After posting the debacle to TikTok, the ChapStick nightmare made its way to social media app Lemon8, where it went viral.
“I did not expect so many people to see it. And, of course, it embarrassed me,” she said.
“But honestly, they were so nice and gave me a lot of recommendations on better ChapStick ideas or how to avoid that happening in the future.
“I thought people were going to be really mean because it’s embarrassing,” she added.
Kenny was at the receiving end of some online bullying but brushed off the hate and welcomed the positive feedback from others who clapped back at the trolls on her behalf.
“A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, like you forgot to ChapStick, but you also forgot to brush your teeth,'” she said, referring to the whiteness of the chapstick creating the illusion of yellowed teeth.
“I understand it, but a lot of people are coming for them in the comments, like, ‘Be nice,'” she added.
Other supporters of Kenny weighed in on the ChapStick, explaining why the product applied the way it did.
“A lot of people said, ‘This ChapStick is for people that ski or people that are in the sun for long periods of time,’ so I don’t do either of those things,” she said.
CHECKING OUT
Kenny’s confused that the unusual lip balm was on display so prominently in the first place.
“I grabbed it at Target and it was at the self-checkout,” she said.
“It makes no sense, honestly, because in Missouri, who’s skiing? Who is using this really intense ChapStick? I don’t know,” she added.
Kenny remedied the situation by sticking to her tried-and-true Blistex Medicated Lip Balm, $1.25 from Dollar Tree, and tossing the goopy Chapstick Active 2-in-1 Unscented Lip Balm, $3.49 from Target.
“I immediately got rid of it. I went to the Target app and I left a review.
“I was like, ‘Do not buy this if you don’t want your lips to be super white.’ So I regret the purchase, but it’s also funny,” she added.