A Westmount beauty clinic had to pay nearly $4,000 to a client whose genitals were burned during a wax hair removal that turned into a disaster in 2020.
A Montrealer, whose name we will not reveal to protect her privacy, showed up at Brow Bar in Westmount on August 17, 2020 to undergo a full Brazilian waxing treatment.
“I informed the technician […] that the wax was too hot and it was painful. She lowered the temperature on the wax heater but immediately continued using the same wax without waiting for it to cool,” testified the customer in a formal note she originally sent to the company.
The beautician then applied wax to an area that had already been waxed.
“Then I felt unbearable pain, I screamed, I sat up and saw blood on the table. I asked what happened and she replied, “It’s nothing, you’re on your period,” the lady explained, specifying that she wasn’t.
The client, who initially asked for $14,900, then canceled the hair removal even though the treatment was not complete. The branch manager offered to end the session in another center with the same banner.
The manager of the Brow Bar in Westmount later contacted her by phone and said she spoke to the technician and they concluded it was menstrual bleeding.
“I found this false and undocumented statement very offensive and impolite,” the client said in her formal statement.
However, the director of the facility admitted at the hearing at the Montreal courthouse that the photos of the lesions “really show an unusual situation.”
“It’s a technique that requires good waxing control because the area is fragile, very vascularized and can be a bit loose. […] Ideally, it has to be an experienced esthetician to do it,” Isabelle C. Caron, president of the Association of Professionals in Electrolysis and Aesthetic Care of Quebec, told the Journal.
To the hospital
The client had to go to the hospital after waxing, where her labia were sewn up. She suffered lacerations almost 5 cm long and 1.5 cm deep and had severe burns in that area, according to medical records.
“The poor quality of treatment [la cliente]or the wax, which was far too hot, is the direct cause of the burns she sustained,” ruled Judge Brigitte Gouin of the Quebec Court’s Small Claims Division last June.
The judge therefore ordered the Brow Bar to pay the client $3,900, including $1,300 to reimburse her for pelvic floor physical therapy that she subsequently had to undergo.