A 10-year-old girl narrowly avoided a major hair disaster after getting 57 sticky Bunchems toys in her hair.
The child was playing with her younger sister when the youngster “dumped” a bucket of the small, sticky toys on her head.
Bunchems are small plastic balls with little hooks designed to stick to one another, in order to create fun shapes and patterns.
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But they are notoriously tricky to get out of hair once stuck – just like this young girl’s.
The desperate child’s mum quickly video-called her hairdresser sister-in-law, Mekenna Zampino, 28, to help with the “emergency”.
The aunt was shocked by the “scary sight” and described the toys as “awful” and “of the devil” when lodged in hair.
“My jaw absolutely dropped when I saw her,” Mekenna, from Orange County, California, told What’s The Jam.
“She was very upset and thinking we were going to have to cut her hair.
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“I think they got stuck worse when they tried to get them out themselves before asking for help.
“I said do not worry, I am going to get these out and I am not cutting your hair.
“I had no idea if that was true, but I needed her to be calm and I was praying I’d get them out.”
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Mekenna immediately went online and found “countless” stories of people in the same situation.
She said: “A lot of people online were adding water, detangler, oil, and other liquids and all I know is wet hair is so much harder to detangle than dry hair, so I decided I wasn’t going to do any of that.
“I told my sister-in-law to have her come into the salon. I was already booked solid for the day, but I said I would work on her situation in between everything I was doing for my clients.
“My brother brought her in and she was so stressed to start with.
“Between him and I taking turns working on her hair, it took about two-and-a-half hours to remove the Bunchems – and it another hour to untangle the mess that they left behind.
“Sitting in the salon chair for hours is definitely not easy for a 10-year-old kid, but she was so thankful that I took the time and didn’t just jump to cutting her hair.
“In the end, it was definitely a bonding experience for my niece and I.”
She also shared a video chronicling the hair rescue on TikTok, which garnered 1.2 million views, to help other fretting parents.
Bunchems posted an instructional video on how to remove the toys if they get stuck in their hair after the toy was released in 2013.
The brand advises applying hair conditioner or vegetable oil to hair stuck around the toys, and combing below until all knots are out.
Once the knots are gone, they advise pulling the Bunchems down until they slide off the end of the hair.
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