A Pennsylvania woman has filed a lawsuit claiming that she contracted herpes from a makeup counter at Macy's. Tammeka Hill was preparing for a night out in New York City, so she went to a MAC cosmetic counter in the Willow Grove Mall to get her makeup done in June 2019.
Everything seemed fine at first, but several days later, Hill's eyes started getting irritated. Nine days later, she had to go to the emergency room because her eye was swollen shut, and she couldn't handle the pain.
"I woke up in agonizing pain, and I couldn't see out of my eye," Hill told the New York Post.
After a few days and meeting with multiple specialists, doctors diagnosed her with ocular herpes.
"I literally cried myself to sleep that night because I just was like, 'This is unbelievable,'" Hill told WPVI.
Hill said that a doctor told her she likely got herpes from the makeup artist, who was not using disposable brushes to apply the makeup.
"I asked her, 'Aren't you supposed to be using disposable makeup?' And her exact words were, 'Girl, you know, I can't beat no face with no disposable brushes,'" Hill said.
Hill said that she has Lupus, which made the herpes outbreaks even worse.
"I started getting lesions on my face — bursting and oozing. It disfigured my face," she said. "Can you imagine as a woman looking in the mirror and seeing lesions?"
The reoccurring outbreaks forced Hill to miss time at work, and in August 2020, she lost her job.
Hill said she decided to file a lawsuit after the company refused to apologize or cover her medical bills.
"I went to MAC so they could make me feel beautiful and feel good about myself," Hill said. "That one incident has caused a lifetime of devastation."
She is seeking unspecified damages in her lawsuit against MAC, Macy's, and MAC's parent company Estee Lauder.
"I would hope that big corporations like this, like the Lauder Company, would take it upon themselves to be responsible and to make changes that really affect the whole industry," Hill's attorney Mark Webb said.
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