Last year, one brave Australian woman took to social media to share photos from her eyebrow microblading session gone very wrong. The bad eyebrow tattoo quickly went viral (for obvious reasons) along with Amanda Coats‘ words of warning about the risks associated with the procedure.

Now, six months later, she is the one being sued by the salon owners, who claim they lost clients because of the graphic images and that her infection was likely caused by a supplementary product used after the procedure. The owner of the Point Cook Skincare Laser Clinic in Melbourne, Iain Cleveland, asserts that his wife, who was the tattoo artist, has also been subjected to ridicule and they are asking for $150,000 in compensation.

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“There’s no way we could possibly be responsible for the infection at that stage, two and a half weeks after the procedure,” he told the Daily Mail after receiving photos two weeks after the adverse reaction. “My wife has done over 2,000 of these procedures, and we’ve never had any issues of infection,” he added. “We’ve been unable to defend ourselves and we are taking action against Ms. Coats for defamation and that’s in the process of being issued.” He goes on to claim that Amanda was “delighted” with her results following the appointment and reassured customers that the company follows “strict industry best practice, standards, and regulations.”

However, Amanda had a very different story when she first shared her story on Facebook. She claims the specialist was rushed and doing another microblading session at the same time and her eyebrows began swelling as soon as she got home. “I ended up with a severe infection from the clinic and the skin was just falling away and my eyes blew up,” she wrote in the since-deleted post. “The next day I woke up, and my skin had come off onto the pillow. I went to the doctor immediately because of the pain and severe swelling. It felt like something was eating away at my skin; I was in so much pain.”

She continued, “If I can help one person, then I don’t mind how bad the photos of me look. I want to make sure no one has to go through what I went through, and that’s the reason I’m speaking out.”

In an episode of The Doctors, board-certified dermatologist Dr. Sonia Batra, who has not treated Amanda, revealed it was most likely a combination of factors that led to the infection. “In this case what I think happened is she actually had two problems. One is when you create nicks in the skin, it’s a great doorway for bacteria and if someone didn’t use sterile instruments or if there was dirt in the environment, her skin wasn’t cleaned properly, she could have definitely gotten an infection and bacteria in there,” she explained. “And second, I think that she, by very bad luck, is also allergic to the dye that was used.”

However, don’t be discouraged. When done correctly, microblading can have excellent results. Dr. Batra recommends make sure you go to professionals with the correct certification and look at the environment before agreeing to the procedure. And definitely avoid Craigslist!