‘This is literally the plot of Hangover’: Man’s temporary Mike Tyson tattoo turns into oozing medical emergency

A night out drinking in Bangkok turned into a scary medical problem for content creator Nick Nayersina. He got what he thought was a safe temporary tattoo, but it quickly became much worse. The TikToker posted a video about his experience that got over 4.2 million views. In it, he showed off a dark brown Mike Tyson-style face tattoo that went from a bad decision to a real health crisis.

Nayersina told his followers on TikTok how everything went wrong. “Guys, we’re in Bangkok. Last night, we went out and for some reason had the great idea of all getting black henna Mike Tyson tattoos,” he said. What started as something fun during a guys’ trip turned into a nightmare when he found out black henna can be really dangerous.

According to Bro Bible, people watching the video immediately saw the similarity to a famous movie. One top comment said, “This is literally the plot of hangover.” The comparison made sense because Nayersina’s real life was copying what happened in The Hangover. In that movie, one guy wakes up after a crazy night in Las Vegas with a Mike Tyson face tattoo and has no idea how he got it. Another viewer even said, “I’m watching The Hangover right now. That’s weird.”

The tattoo became a serious problem

Instead of slowly fading away like normal temporary tattoos do, Nayersina’s tattoo started hurting his skin. “My whole tattoo is blistering and oozing. And we just looked up everywhere that there are a lot of people who’ve gotten this from the same spot that we got it at and have had permanent scarring,” he explained.

He started to worry that the damage might never go away. “I might have a permanent Mike Tyson tattoo on my face. It is starting to blister and scar and ooze. And I’m kinda freaking out,” he said in the video. He told other people not to make his mistake, saying, “Don’t come to Bangkok and get a black henna tattoo really drunk with your friends because it could lead to this.”

Black henna causes problems because it has a chemical called para-phenylenediamine, or PPD. This chemical gets added to make temporary tattoos look darker and stay on longer. Real henna by itself is usually safe, but PPD can cause bad allergic reactions. These reactions usually show up 7 to 14 days after you get the tattoo and include really bad itching, burning, blisters, and oozing.

Some people in the comments tried to help. One person said, “Put Vaseline over it all the time! Don’t let it ever sit dry until all the wounds are gone.” Other people seemed surprised about the dangers, with one asking, “Black henna is illegal??!!” Like other viral TikTok stories that blur the line between fact and fiction, viewers were split on whether this was actually real.

The FDA only says henna is okay to use as a hair dye, not on your skin. Black henna can have PPD levels as high as 30%, but the chemical is only allowed in hair dyes at 6%. The United States and Europe both say PPD should never be in any product that goes directly on skin.

Three days later, Nayersina posted another video where the tattoo looked much lighter. But some viewers thought he might be making the whole thing up for attention. It was a painful experience but at least he had an interesting enough story to tell on TikTok that went viral.