RETAIL giant Shein has withdrawn some of its birthday balloons from sale in the UK after a woman became ill after blowing dozens of them up.
Grace Piper said she became feverish, nauseous and tired after inflating them for her baby daughter Poppy’s first birthday.
Grace, 36, from Cheltenham, Glos, said: “As I blew up the balloons, my mouth got really dry.
“They tasted very strange.
“It dried out my entire mouth. My lips went really dry.”
She added that her husband blew up one balloon with his mouth before opting to use a pump.
Grace said he became slightly nauseous after blowing air into the single balloon with his mouth, but nothing like as bad as her, after she blew up about 50 of them.
There was a delay of nearly two days between her blowing up the balloons on the Friday night and becoming very ill on the Sunday afternoon.
She said: “I had awful diarrhoea. I felt very sick but managed not to be sick because I have a real phobia about it and kept suppressing it.
“I was shivery despite having two jumpers on and a duvet on me. I couldn’t sleep.
“On the Monday I was in bed all day. I couldn’t do anything.”
Grace said she felt so rotten that she did not eat anything until having a piece of toast on the Wednesday and she didn’t have a meal until the Thursday.
She added: “It was awful. I’ve not been that ill for about 10 years.”
A part-time teacher at an infants’ school in Gloucester, she has previously picked up illnesses from her pupils but she ruled this out as a cause.
She said: “Usually when that happens, the sickness comes on within 48 hours of me seeing the children.
“I left the kids on the Wednesday. If I had got it from them I would have been ill by the Thursday evening or the Friday, not the Sunday.”
The experience has left her wondering about the safety of the balloons.
She said: “I would like to know what was on them. Imagine if Poppy had got one of them in her mouth.”
Grace bought 66 packets of a DIY Birthday Balloon Set, which included standard balloons and a large foil balloon in the shape of the number one, to make Poppy’s first birthday display.
Imagine if Poppy had got one of them in her mouthGrace
A spokesperson for Shein said it had withdrawn the product from sale in the UK after it was informed about Grace’s concerns and that it would investigate the matter further.
In a statement, it said: “When we are made aware of an issue with an item from one of our third party suppliers, we immediately remove it from our site.
“We are committed to product safety and we will continue to work hard to provide customers with safe and affordable products.”
The Chinese-founded company was launched in 2012 and focused on fashion.
It has grown massively, now has 16,000 employees and sells all kinds of things for the home and work place to more than 150 countries.
It has been dogged by controversy over its environmental impact and working conditions, including allegations of forced labour in its supply chain.
