A holidaymaker was left in agony after suffering a severe allergic reaction to her henna sleeve tattoo which left her feeling like she was 'burning alive'.
Alexandra Hallman, from Santa Barbara, US, treated herself on her trip to Zanzibar earlier this year.
But the 23-year-old suffered a nasty reaction to the paint, which turned into chemical burns that were so 'excruciating' she was bedbound for nearly three weeks and had to tie her hands together to stop herself scratching.
She got the 'beautiful' henna artwork covering her arms, hands and shoulders during her break.
It took hours for the artist to complete the authentic-looking tattoo - and the woman says she got impatient.
Asking if she could buy some to complete the rest herself, the worker agreed to sell the paint to her.
Alexandra went on to regret her decision and soon noticed itchy pimples all over her body. She spent hours desperately scrubbing off the tattoos in the shower but that just made things worse.
She explained: "I loved it so much. It came out beautifully and in the first whole week it was beautiful.
"I actually even did it again to touch it up around four to five days from originally first getting it.
"Which was absolutely my mistake and my fault but I didn't realise that after seven days I'd have a delayed reaction, even on places that I didn't go over.
"It would have been just normal chemical burns and I made it worse by doing it again because I didn't have any symptoms yet."
The problems continues and she said: "The henna started to turn into little bumps that looked like pimples - they were kind of gross pimples with white heads.
"At first I was worried it was a rash as it really itched.
"My roommate had to tie my hands together at night because I started to scratch off my own skin while I was asleep.
"I slept with a towel as handcuffs but that way I wouldn't make my skin bleed throughout the night.
"And then the bumps started to go all over my entire arm so it looked like it was covered in pimples.
"I got really scared because I'd just done a second coat a day before to make it last longer."
She was left in tears throughout her trauma - and urged anyone considering a henna tattoo to tread carefully.
"I was screaming and crying all day long for two and a half to three weeks," she went on.
"I couldn't even leave the bed or go outside or do anything. It felt like I was being burned alive.
"It's not like being burned alive for one second, or one day, it's being burned alive for like three weeks constantly, and there's nothing you can do about it.
'It was the most excruciating thing I've ever gone through and I've been through a lot in my life."
Alexandra said that her burns slowly healed but it took some time for her skin to grow back.
