Explained | Three US women contract AIDS after undergoing 'vampire facial'. What is it?

Three women in New Mexico recently contracted HIV after they allegedly took their urge for makeup a little beyond expected. Given the market of beauty products today, there are several cosmetic techniques proposed by many beauticians worldwide, however, choosing what's best is your choice and responsibility.

The three women apparently came across a beautification process that's called 'vampire facial'. As known widely from movies at least, that vampires tend to feed on blood— this process involves removal of the subject's blood to stimulate collagen production.

According to a report by Hindustan Times, the subject's blood is also used to enhance hair growth while it is also used in wound healing.

The American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD) terms this cosmetic procedure as PRP - Platelet-Rich-Plasma - which it says is a three-step process. AAD also mentioned that the blood extracted from the body must be kept sterile.

In the aforementioned procedure, a subject's blood is drawn from their arm and placed into a machine that separates the platelets from the rest of the blood.

Later, the same blood is re-injected into the subject undergoing vampire facial (only the part of your blood that contains a high concentration of platelets).

What can be called even more painful is that this process is at times combined with microneedling to boost skin texture that adds to the glow.

However, at what cost? Additionally, the women underwent this facial at an unlicensed medical spa in Mexico, days after which they were diagnosed with AIDS.

According to the publication, the US federal health officials said that this case is believed to be the "first documented case of people contracting the virus through a cosmetic procedure using needles".

Details about the medical spa visited by the three women were published in the Morbidity and Mortality Report, released earlier this week, in which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that an examination of the clinic from 2018 to 2023 showed that it reused single-use disposable equipment, that might have led to the women contracting HIV.

Medical experts along with AAD clearly state that there is no established evidence over the safety of such cosmetic procedures.

The 45-minute-long procedure can lead to bizarre side effects or turn to become a nightmare as suffered by the three women in this report.