A 10-year-old UK girl named Bella had to be hospitalized after a TikTok squishy toy stunt literally blew up in her face, leaving her with “traumatizing” burns.
It looked like she’d been whacked in the face,” her mother Charlotte, 42, from Hartcliff, Bristol, told the BBC.
Her daughter had reportedly been at a friend’s house when the fiasco occurred.
She had reportedly been copying the viral TikTok challenge where youngsters place NeeDoh — a squishy stress cube made of rubber with a polyvinyl alcohol filling — in the freezer and then microwave it for several seconds to make it more malleable.
The harmless-seeming experiment backfired after the gelatinous cube exploded, showering Bella’s face with the molten, napalm-like goo.
“When she came in, I could see straight away her face was bright red….I could see the scald mark and there was skin missing and blisters.”
“Because of the silicone outer layer, they couldn’t feel how hot it was inside, so her friend squeezed it, which is when it burst onto both of them,” Charlotte told the outlet. “When she came in, I could see straight away her face was bright red…I could see the scald mark, and there was skin missing and blisters. She was in absolute tears.”
The petrified mother is now worried that her child could be scarred for life. “She has been referred to the burns unit and told she won’t be able to have her face in the sun for at least 2 summers,” lamented Charlotte in a Facebook post along with pics of her progeny’s facial wounds. “They aren’t sure if it will scar. She is a very lucky girl, this didn’t get in her eye.”
After other parents informed her that a TikTok trend could be behind the incident, Charlotte did some web research, finding videos of people microwaving these hot toys in the microwave “to make them more elastic.”
TikTok warns on its site that the platform doesn’t “allow the display or promotion of dangerous activities and challenges or violence.”
“This may include dares, games, tricks, inappropriate use of dangerous tools, eating substances that are harmful to one’s health, or similar activities that may lead to significant physical harm,” the site says.
Nonetheless, the Brit is now using her child’s ordeal as a cautionary tale to help prevent the same fate from befalling other kids.
“Please talk to your kids of the dangers — if you Google it, there’s been so many kids with horrific burns from doing this,” she warned on FB. “This post was to raise awareness of one of the current ones with a very popular toy at the moment.”
Manufactured by the Massachusetts toy company Schylling, NeeDoh is currently one of the hottest toys on the market, with some of these squishy stress cubes currently reselling on eBay for up to $500.
Available in a variety of different shapes and sizes, these cubes can be stretched and pulled, offering a satisfying tactile experience — some parents even claim their kids use them for sensory issues.
However, these squishies have come under fire on Amazon and other sites for their propensity to pop. According to Consumer Reports, customers have complained that the toy “busted after not even a day.” Others claimed that the gel leaked onto their kids, raising concerns that the contents could be toxic.
However, Schylling maintains that the goop is made of “Maltose” or “100% Malt Extract” (a type of sugar made from barley). Meanwhile, the Nee-Doh Groovy Glob contains polyvinyl alcohol gel, aka PVA, which the toy company claims is “used as a coating in pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements.”
However, the gel toy monger has a warning on their website that reads, “Do NOT heat, freeze or microwave, may cause personal injury.”
Nonetheless, this PSA hasn’t stopped youngsters from using the cubes for hazardous stunts.
In 2025, a 7-year-old Missouri girl named Scarlett Selby was left in a coma when a squishy toy exploded after she placed it in the microwave.
“I’ve told absolutely everyone to throw them out if they have them,” her father, Josh, cautioned. “The product that’s in it is like glue, so you essentially have hot glue exploding on you. Once it touches you, there’s no way to get it off.”
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