Nothing says “holiday season” quite like Pinterest DIYs. Nothing says “Pinterest DIYs”  like chemical burns. Welcome to Nobody Puts Kenzie In The Corner: The Real Cinnamon Challenge.

As my closest friends, family and followers know, I’m little short of obsessed with Pinterest health fads. Everything from hair serums to face masks to detox teas has found its way to my many meticulously labeled boards. Among these was a seemingly miraculous circulation-boosting body wrap. Naturally, I was intrigued. I had heard of body wraps before, but had never actually tried one. As far as I knew, the preface of body wraps is essentially this: you slather your abdomen in some odd herby serum, Saran Wrap yourself, and overnight the magical witchcraft does something to your skin or internal circulation or something. In other words, I knew nothing about body wraps. I didn’t know the purpose, or the science behind it, or anything important. But that did not stop me from rounding up the equally clueless junior Kelly Hulsey for what would quickly become a very scarring experience, both physically and mentally.

Allow me to paint you a portrait of the night of the incident: last weekend, Kelly and I painstakingly squeeze five travel-sized unscented lotions into a small bowl. We pour the suggested two tablespoons of cinnamon into said bowl. Then, the step-by-step guide called for us to lay extremely hot towels on our abdomens to “open up the pores”. After removing the towels, we smeared the concoction on our skin and Saran Wrapped the affected area about six layers deep.

That’s when it got weird. One’s skin begins to tingle in such a way Kelly described as “similar to the feeling when your limbs fall asleep.” Then began the heat. Apparently, the point of body wraps is to make you sweat. Yeah, that worked. There was also a very dull aching sensation. After an hour or two of great discomfort, Kelly and I went to sleep.

I was gently awoken around 1 a.m to a symphonic array of profanity streaming from the other side of the room, where Kelly was gently prodding at her Saran Wrapped stomach. Feeling rather gross and over-heated, I rolled out of bed to join her. After a few minutes of avid complaining, Kelly went to the bathroom to peel the wrap off before undergoing more suffering. She returned wide-eyed and panicked at the seared, red, patchy burns across her stomach. Horrified, I immediately peeled the Saran Wrap off my skin to find it in a similar but admittedly less severe condition.

For the next few days, the wounds only hurt when we tried little, minute, unnecessary tasks like breathing or moving or wearing clothes. Now, a perfect week later, we both look a little cherry-esque in complexion, and while my burns have all but faded, Kelly’s are still “disgustingly bruised and HURTING.” 

Moral of the story? Stick with the professionals when it comes to body wraps. Thank you for reading. Be safe, folks. Pinterest is a dangerous place.

So long and goodnight,
Mackenzie Nicole O’Guin

Special thanks to Kelly Hulsey for taking the brunt of this cinnamon wrap mishap and Pinterest for the false sense of security.