How To Get Herpes From Eyebrow Wax

A woman who sued a Croton-on-Hudson nail salon for $5 million claiming she contracted the herpes virus during an eyebrow waxing procedure won a court decision that could allow her case to proceed to a jury trial.

The woman, Carolyn Tuttle, is entitled to a trial to determine whether she became afflicted with the virus as a result of an $8 eyebrow wax she received at the Coach Nail Salon in November 2002, according to a unanimous ruling by the state Appellate Division dated May 30.

Tuttle's lawsuit states that two days after the procedure, she developed lesions near her eyebrow where a salon employee, who was not wearing gloves, had touched her.

After seeing a doctor, the woman tested positive for Herpes Simplex 1.

"There has never been a prior reported case in the medical literature of a person getting the herpes simplex virus from having their eyebrows waxed," said Marcy Sonneborn, an attorney for the salon. "It's an impossible thing to happen."

But Dr. Jonathan Jacobs, a professor of clinical medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, said that while he had never heard of such a case before, it was possible to pass the virus from herpetic infections on the hand known as "whitlows."

"Herpes can infect through intact skin, but it is much more common when there is a break in the skin," Jacobs said.

In sworn depositions, the owner of the salon, Hyun Lee, said he could not remember which employee administered the procedure and that he did not maintain payroll or licensing records for all of the many employees who came and went during the time between the incident and the lawsuit.

In seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, the owners challenged the woman's ability to establish a "causal connection" between her visit to the salon and her contraction of the virus.

In January, state Supreme Court Justice Mary Smith denied a motion to dismiss the case. The salon appealed and lost.

The salon's attorney, Sonneborn, said she was disappointed with the decision but was confident the owners would prevail at trial. She said the woman had no way of proving that she contracted the virus in the salon, and not through some other means.

The woman's lawyer, Barry Birbrower, submitted court papers claiming the waxing process made the virus transmission more likely.

"That the skin being denuded as it was removes a protective barrier laying bare microscopic blood particles and body fluid and greatly increases the risk of contamination and infection from the Herpes virus," Birbrower wrote.

Each side has submitted affidavits from medical experts supporting its position. Barring a pretrial settlement, a jury will have to sort them out and decide. The case was stayed pending the appeal and the next hearing has not been scheduled.

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Now if they look at the hidden camera they would see that she slept with the homeless guy on top of the counter at the store then got her eyebrows done, but it was the workers that gave her herpes. Yeah, blame it on sex having eye wax.