Ask anyone how they keep their skin looking radiant and their hair looking shiny and they’ll give you a complete rundown of their beauty regimen, right down to yogurt in their locks, toothpaste on problem areas, and a recipe for some strange garlic paste their grandmother swears will keep one’s elbows feeling softer than a newborn’s ten-minute-old behind. But while some of these beauty secrets and fixes are kept secret within families (especially if it involves the sacrifice of another human in the name of eternal beauty), there are others that are so sworn by that people are out there making money and pushing their lifestyle on others. Like this woman, who only cleanses her face with semen. And if you thought that was already too much, you probably weren’t expecting someone to put horse placenta all over their face in order to stay looking fresh forever. But they do. They do.
Weird beauty cures were already addressed last year in a harrowing episode of MTV’s True Life, but for some people, bathing in blood is just the beginning. In a piece for Vice, Alba Carreres tried some even stranger beauty treatments, such as putting Sriracha on your lips to plump them (you know that burns, right? It burns!), taking an acid bath (oh my god) brushing her teeth with strawberries (okay, that sounds pleasant), and letting her best features become a breeding ground for snails. All of these treatments were out there, but none were as strange as placing nice fresh equine afterbirth on her face (the vampire facial, where you inject your own blood into your face is a contender, but it’s more dumb and expensive than gross).
Let’s talk about that placenta, shall we? From Vice:
It was pretty difficult to get hold of a placenta. I called up a number of vets, but I quickly learned that asking a stranger for placenta is asking to get hung up on. I got lucky when I called a horse-breeding centre in the area that has stallions, mares and foals hopping about. No question there would be heaps of placentas in their stables. When I called them up, it didn’t even surprise them that much that I was asking for a placenta. They were very sweet about it and invited me to go and collect one during a birth that was going to take place that very day.
Bet Kim Kardashian and Harry Styles (who Carreres points out have both tried this) don’t have to work as hard to get their placenta. They probably have special assistants whose only job is to procure and then place the placenta. Unfortunately for Carreres, she actually had to go through the process alone. And it sounds like something out of a Saw film:
Divina’s placenta was kept in a tub and I brought it home quickly, so I could put it in the fridge. It stayed there for a night, together with some soy shakes, radishes and carrots. When we took it out of the tub the next day, it already smelt like death – really one of the most unpleasant smells I’ve come across in my entire life. But there was no getting out of this. With the help of my friend Gonzalo I cut a piece of placenta that would be the bit I’d have on my face. It wasn’t easy to pick a bit but we did in the end.
It rested on my face for a couple of minutes, while I tried not to think about how much it stank. It was moist and sticky and nightmarish.
Even worse? After Carreres had washed the placenta off (without throwing up) (kudos!), a doctor told her that placing animal parts on your face probably isn’t going to do anything ever. Yep, if your dad ever told you that putting a raw steak on the black eye you got from your brother was ever going to help, he was wrong, too. There’s just no reason to believe that because something is gross or comes from an animal that it’s going to be good for you. That’s the same lesson Carreres learned when she put snails on her face. She writes that her face felt good after, but some of it may have had to do with wishful thinking.
At least one good thing came out of this experiment, though: Carreres became the godmother to the baby horse whose placenta she used to attempt to augment her looks. That baby mare’s now named Olympia, and that might make the whole “horse afterbirth all over the face” thing just a tiny bit worth it, right? (No.)
Not creeped out yet? Read the entire piece here.
