‘My Face Is Scarred’: Big Brother Star Tilly’s TikTok Beauty Fail Is a Lesson For Us All

TikTok is a wild and wonderful place. Amongst the videos of people dancing and cute animals, there is a plethora of beauty-related content. While some of the beauty hacks demonstrated in these videos are interesting and intriguing to try — fake tan as lip liner, anyone? — others should be avoided at all costs.

One person who learnt this the hard way is Big Brother housemate Tilly Whitfield. The communications student, who hails from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, tried out a beauty hack she saw on TikTok and unfortunately, it didn’t *quite* go to plan.

On the April 28 episode of Big Brother, Tilly was in the bathroom taking off her makeup when she revealed her ill-fated attempt at recreating a beauty how-to she saw on the video-sharing app. The 21-year-old admitted that she had attempted to acupuncture her face.

“I acupunctured my face recently and I got scars all over my face,” Tilly said as she dabbed cream on her cheeks. When asked if she did this often, Tilly responded: “I shouldn’t have done it — I copied a TikTok video. My whole face is scarred.”

Since then, Tilly has been seen sporting a blue clay face mask on the show — one she seems to have on constantly. And, fans of Big Brother have noticed. To clear the matter up, Tilly took to Instagram and revealed that the clay mask has something to do with her TikTok-approved acupuncture.

“For those asking why I have my blue clay face mask on continuously through out [sic] the show this is what my face looked like a week prior to entering the house hence why I always have makeup on and my skin is always covered,” Tilly wrote on Instagram.

“This is the result of attempting to remove scarring I inflicted on myself trying to replicate an at home beauty procedure I saw on a tik tok video 2 months before big brother 🤣 who bloody else would manage to do such a thing. Please please don’t try any ‘DIY’ or ‘at home’ beauty procedures I ended up in hospital with temporary loss of vision in my eye due to swelling and was very sick from the infection, not to mention my face was somewhat unrecognisable. Leave it to the professionals 🌈🦄✨”

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Tilly went on to explain that the scarring she experienced as a result of the acupuncture was “deep below surface level scarring” which has caused pigmentation on her skin. To clear up any comments about the scarring, Tilly wrote: “I literally shoved needles deep into my skin this is not a rash”.

Ouch. Tilly’s faux pas is a good reminder to take advice from TikTok with a grain of salt — while some of it is potentially life-changing, a lot of it is unsubstantiated so proceed with caution. While it might be tempting to copy techniques you’ve seen on the app, if it doesn’t go right, it can be potentially damaging to your skin.

If you happen to be interested in acupuncture, please enlist the help of an expert. Your precious skin deserves it! We hope Tilly’s skin is feeling better soon.