Case study: £2,450 compensation for underarm wax injury

Our beauty treatment claim solicitors recently helped a client claim compensation for negligent beauty treatment that caused her pain and affected the enjoyment of her holiday.

Visit to salon for pre-holiday wax

Our client, Mrs E, regularly attends a salon for beauty treatments. The day before she was due to go on holiday, she went into the salon for an underarm wax, manicure, pedicure and nail polish. Her usual therapist was not working, so she was booked in with a different therapist, who is believed to have been a trainee.

When the therapist was waxing our client’s underarm, it was unusually painful and felt very uncomfortable. When Mrs E got home, she checked her underarms and layers of skin had been removed by the wax, causing the area to bleed.

Mrs E was still able to go on her family holiday to Greece the following day, but could not enjoy all the activities she had planned due to the ongoing pain under her arms. In particular, Mrs E was unable to swim in the pool or undertake any water sports activities during the first week of the holiday, due to the raw skin under her arms being very painful on contact with water.

The injuries to Mrs E’s underarms settled over the course of a few weeks. However, she was left with some minor discolouration in her skin as a result of the treatment.

‘No win, no fee’ beauty treatment claim

Our personal injury solicitors assessed Mrs E’s case and agreed to take on the claim on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis.

Although burning is a common side effect and a possible risk of underarm waxing, this only happens if you accidentally remove the top layer of skin. This can sometimes happen if the technician is inexperienced, not properly trained, or if the wax is too hot.

Our lawyers wrote to the beauty salon to request details of their public liability insurers and drafted a Claim Notification Form ready to submit to them, setting out the details of our client’s claim.

We received an admission of liability from the insurers within 40 days, accepting that their technician was negligent in the treatment provided to Mrs E.

The next step was to instruct a medical expert to prepare a report on Mrs E’s injuries, laying out the future prognosis and any recommended treatment. The expert confirmed that the burns had made a good recovery within eight weeks, but there was some minimal residual discolouration. Mrs E also sustained situational anxiety which was predicted to resolve within nine months of the accident.

Valuing the claim for beauty treatment negligence

Our personal injury solicitors obtained details of Mrs E’s financial losses, which included:

• The cost of ointments
• The cost of the wax treatment
• A Loss of Enjoyment Claim for her holiday to Greece

We took details from Mrs E regarding the holiday and excursions that she was not able to enjoy, then drafted a witness statement on her behalf to support the claim. This included a claim for a portion of the cost of her holiday tickets.

We valued her claim in full, drafted a schedule of her financial losses, and submitted an initial offer to the Defendant’s insurers.

Settlement of the waxing injury claim

Both parties made a couple of offers during the negotiations. However, the Defendant’s offer was still lower than we hoped. Our solicitors had a ‘without prejudice’ conversation with the Defendant’s insurers to try and persuade them to increase their offer before court proceedings were started.

The claim was settled in full for £2,450.

Contact our beauty treatment solicitors

If you have been injured by a beauty treatment that has gone wrong, contact our personal injury solicitors about making a claim. We offer a no-obligation initial chat with a member of our team and can talk you through the process in more detail.

Call our specialist beauty treatment injury lawyers in Bristol on 0117 325 2929 or fill out our online enquiry form.