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The ‘Deodorant Challenge’ Is A Thing Now, And A Mom Says Her Kid Got Severe Burns Doing It

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 10:16 PST, May 8, 2018

The “deodorant challenge,” where someone sprays deodorant on another person for as long as they (the “victim”) can stand it, appears to be the latest craze among teens and children, and one British mom is warning other parents about the fad after what happened to her own daughter, Fox News is reporting.

First it was the Tide Pods Challenge, where teenagers supposedly dared each other to eat detergent pods (and risk gruesome esophageal injuries in the process). After that it was the Condom Challenge, where jokesters snorted condoms up their noses (risking choking). And now the latest challenge, the “Deodorant Challenge,” involves spraying deodorant on an accomplice at close range, and risking severe chemical burns in the process.

So says British mom Jamie Prescott. According to her, her 15-year-old daughter Ellie may need a skin graft after participating in the “game.” Three weeks ago she and a friend did the challenge, and now Ellie is left with a horrific-looking chemical burn that she says is still oozing after all this time.

“For any parents who have children, please, please sit them down and show them these pictures. These are the damaging results of something known as ‘The Deodorant Challenge’ which is currently doing the rounds.”

The problem, if you haven’t already figured it out, is that spray deodorant is propelled by one or more chemicals that leave the can at extremely cold temperatures. Spraying those chemicals directly onto human skin, at close range and for more than a couple of seconds, can cause severe chemical burns.

If you haven’t heard of the Deodorant Challenge yet, Prescott and Ellie would both remind you that it’s big in England right now, even if it hasn’t yet made it to the States. Ellie recently changed schools, and she said the challenge was popular at both schools.

However, it may very well be that this is all an elaborate hoax — or at least, much ado about not a lot. Ellie may have very well been injured by horsing around with deodorant, but the prevalence of the Deodorant Challenge and similar challenges can oft be exaggerated by the media. The Condom Challenge, for example, was supposedly a thing for a few weeks earlier this year, but as the Chicago Tribune reported in April, not a single emergency room reported a child or teenager with a condom stuck up his or her nose. Similarly, the whole Tide Pods Challenge, according to Snopes, was equally overblown: while some poison control centers did report instances of people consuming the laundry aids for a few weeks in early 2018, they were not getting such reports at higher rates than previous years.

Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, the Inquisitr would like to remind you to tell your teenagers not to risk chemical burns by spraying deodorant on each other at close range for minutes at a time.

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