Since the meteoric rise of TikTok, medical professionals have increasingly been called to take precious time out of their busy lives to explain to us all why we shouldn’t do some stupid thing to our bodies that’s currently going viral on the platform, like shaving down our teeth with nail files.
On today’s episode of terrible ideas from TikTok, doctors are warning people not to put erection cream on their lips after one TikToker went viral for repurposing a topical cream meant to enhance sexual performance as a lip plumper.
“So recently I saw a movie and this girl put erection cream on her lips and it made them really big, so I wanted to try it,” TikTok user jerrybmaldanado said in the video, which has since received over 3.5 million views. The film he’s referring to, according to Insider, is 2020’s A Nice Girl Like You, in which Lucy Hale’s character accidentally mistakes erection cream for lip gloss. The TikToker then went on to slather his lips with the product, washing it off after several minutes because his mouth, unsurprisingly, was “burning pretty bad.”
While the unconventional beauty hack did appear to work from an aesthetic standpoint, resulting in a puffed-up pout the New York Post bizarrely compared to two “miniature life rafts,” doctors have since come forward to warn other amateur cosmetologists against copying the DIY lip augmentation. While it makes sense that erection cream, a product designed to enhance sexual performance by stimulating blood flow to the penis, would also stimulate blood flow to the lips for a poutier look, medical professionals maintain there’s a reason such products are intended for the genitals, not the lips.
Erection creams are vasodilators containing alprostadil and peppermint oil, ingredients that may be too harsh for the thin, delicate skin on the lips, leading to stinging, swelling, peeling and allergic reactions, dermatologist Dr. Hadley King told Insider.
Dr. Ross Perry, medical director of the UK’s Cosmedics, said the lip-augmentation hack is “utterly ridiculous and can be extremely dangerous,” telling Metro that using erection cream on the lips could have adverse effects ranging from soreness, swelling and blisters to blood pressure fluctuations and heart problems if the product is accidentally ingested.
In conclusion, don’t use products that are meant for one part of your body on a different part of your body, especially when one of those body parts is your penis.
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