What a tangle! The 20 toy balls that got stuck in girl’s hair
IT began as a practical joke to annoy his big sister.
But this is what was left of tenyear-old Rose Coull’s hair after her brother, Angus, five, threw a packet of toy Bunchems on her head.
The multi-coloured, spiky plastic balls, which will be on many Christmas lists this year, stick to each other to allow children to create different models and characters.
But, unfortunately for Rose, they are almost impossible to free when tangled in hair.
Her mother, Margaret, 41, spent two and a half hours trying to shampoo, brush and snip 20 of the toys out of her ‘hysterical’ daughter’s brown locks on Monday.
‘It was horrendous,’ she said last night. ‘Her brother Angus put the whole bunch on her head. They torment each other. Needless to say, I wasn’t a happy mum. By the time we’d lifted them off, about 20 were embedded ... My daughter was hysterical and I honestly thought they’d have to be cut out.’
Mrs Coull, who recently moved to Scotland from Cheadle, Greater Manchester, posted an appeal for help on a local mother’s group on Facebook and was inundated with advice, with suggestions of everything from fabric conditioner to coconut oil to help free the toys.
Mrs Coull, a married mother- ofthree and former airline worker, said: ‘I used a mixture of everyone’s tips – plus Google. We used a comb, skewers, scissors to snip bits of hair and cut some of the Bunchems in half, conditioner, vegetable oil, fabric conditioner, but they still wouldn’t budge. Eventually we stuck her in the bath, used loads more conditioner, combs, various brushes, a Tangle Teezer [hairbrush] and the remaining 15 were removed.’
Rose had been given the Bunchems a few months ago as a present, but they had been stored in a toy box until Monday’s incident. She is not the first to get them stuck in her hair. Following the launch of the product in 2015, manufacturer Spin Master was made aware of other similar incidents and produced a video showing people how to play with them, and more importantly how to remove them should they get tangled in hair. In a statement, the company said: ‘The Bunchems packaging and directions clearly state: “Caution: Keep away from hair. May become entangled”.’