Woman Sues Beauty Salon Over Lip Wax

NEW YORK (AP) -- A woman who went to a beauty salon so she could "look pretty for herself and her family" sued the shop Thursday saying a worker removed layers of skin and flesh from her top lip during a hot wax hair removal procedure.

Mercy Ago, 48, said she was bleeding and in pain after having a hot wax treatment Oct. 23 in Master Nails USA, a beauty shop near her home in Harlem. Ago said shop employees gave her a Band-Aid and an ointment for the wound.

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During the same visit, Ago got her eyebrows hot waxed. Because of chemicals in the topical cream the salon employee used, said Ago's lawyer Alan Schnurman, the skin around her eyes darkened so that she looked like she had two black eyes.

"I was suicidal" after looking in the mirror, said Ago, a Ghanaian who spoke in halting English during a news conference in Schnurman's office. "I felt awful."

The woman who did the hot wax procedure "didn't even ask me my name or my telephone number," Ago said. She said her husband, Elvis Egbenyah, took her to Harlem Hospital after he saw her and she explained what had happened.

The salon's lawyer, John S. Park, said he had heard of the lawsuit but had not seen Ago's papers and had no comment.

Ago said the visit was her third to that salon. In the first two, she had only her eyebrows done. On Oct. 23, she had her eyebrows and top lip waxed. She said noticed immediately that the lip wax was too hot, and when the employee tried to remove it, she took off skin and flesh.

Schnurman said, "It's our position that this was depraved and reckless act. It should never have happened. Her intention was to look pretty for herself and her family," the lawyer said. "You go there to feel good, not to be disfigured."

Ago's lawsuit is asking for unspecified and punitive damages, Schnurman said.

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