Transcribed by Vincent Teller, Pendog Historian

Interview between Vincent Teller and Kelly H, about her experience with Helena Beauty Brands.

V: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Kelly! Sorry for the lateness. I caught some traffic on the way up.

K: Oh no, it’s no problem! I appreciate you traveling all the way up here to talk to me about the accident. I’m a little surprised that anyone would care enough to come get my account of things. It was such a big deal back in the day, but hardly anyone seems to remember it anymore. I didn’t think anyone would care.

V: I care. I think it’s important to keep stories like yours circulating.

K: Ah, well… Where do you want me to start? I’ve only been interviewed once. I was so young back then…

V: Why not tell me a bit about how you ended up at the Helena Beauty Brands Expo?

K: Oh, that’s an easy question. Every little girl in the 60’s used Helena products. Helena Troy was a household face, and she was… Oh, how did those old adverts refer to her? “The pretty friend of every girl and gal?” Some friend she turned out to be though.

But yes, I was one of those many little girls who preened in the mirror, and combed their hair and painted their nails with Helena products. I got the advertising jingle stuck in my head often. And I pinned up pages from the Helena beauty magazines on my walls the moment the next issue arrived in the mail. Sometimes my father would lift me up on his shoulders so I could plaster another page to the wall at the very top. I remember my mother teaching me to paint my nails with Helena nail paint… Those were happy times. Even now I can’t bring myself to feel bad about them.

Again, Helena was a big name. People were excited about their products, and… looking at it now I’m not sure why people were that excited… I’ve done my own digging, for closure, you understand. And the products that they were selling honestly weren’t all that special. Maybe even sub quality compared to what was being sold at the time. I guess the power of marketing made up for the lackluster nature of their products, though… the sensationalism of it all and the excitement of new big labels with a cute cartoon on them too.

Ah, but the Expo, was it? When it was announced, I had actually signed up to be a special guest through the mail in magazine form, and well… Someone had to win! I guess, I just wish it hadn’t been me. The winners were to be given free Helena dresses, beauty products, and the chance to demonstrate in a live advertisement how the new products worked. When the letter came in the mail announcing I had won, I ran around the house waving it around, and slept with it underneath my pillow every night until the big day. I was so excited. I was so young, and filled with dreams of being able to show off to my friends at school and one day be a famous star.

The day of the Expo, I hurtled out the door and into the car, kicking my feet as my dad drove the family and I down to the big event. I was the first out the car door, I remember that for sure. The moment the vehicle parked I hopped onto the ground below and sprinted off. I would have gotten lost if my mother hadn’t grabbed my arm at the last minute. People were bustling around, dressed up the best that they could, some better than others, all eager to show off.

The air was charged with excitement, anticipation, and remembering it now makes me feel a little sickly. Regardless, I was greeted at the entrance by a Helena representative who took our coats and handed them to another worker who slipped into the reception area. The representative guided us through the weaving network of beauty stations and pop up displays, pointing things out and explaining recent innovations from Helena that I honestly was not paying attention to. I was more focused on my own little internal world. The fact that I was here at all felt like a dream. I only snapped out of my little celebration when the guide stopped and I nearly ran into him. Steadying myself, I found that we had arrived at the podium from which the special guests and important company representatives would be addressing the Expo attendees. It was a stage in the shape of a large half circle, with red frilly curtains and flower pots around the sides filled to the edges with white flowers, in the back a large poster, almost as large as the stage itself, of Helena Troy, her expression coy and playful as always.

With the help of my father, I was hoisted up onto the platform and took my place next to several other people, some young girls like myself, some much older than me.

I could talk about a couple of the product demonstrations, but it wouldn’t add anything to this story. I can only talk for so long before I get tired, so I will get to what you are here to hear about. The skin cream, a revolutionary new product from Helena Beauty Brands that left a woman’s skin silky soft and smooth like no other product out there. We went to the front of the podium, we demonstrated its application, something that thinking of now makes me really uncomfortable. But otherwise it was not noteworthy. We completed the Expo, and I went home. I slept soundly, pulled into a deep dream by the excitement of the day.

It was around 4am in the morning when I awoke, screaming and feeling like the skin of my arm was trying to pull away from my body.

At this point in the interview Kelly holds up her right arm, the back of it covered in several circular scars that run in a pattern down her skin.

K: I’ve been told I’ll probably never be able to use this arm at full capacity ever again. I still feel the pain from that night now and again, a welting seething burning that felt as if my arm had actually been lit on fire. As if something was trying to burrow through my skin and into the open air. I used to be right handed, but I’ve had to readjust and learn to do a lot of things with my left hand since then… Still, I got off lucky.

A lot of the attendees weren’t as lucky as I was. I was rushed to the hospital immediately by my father with no time to say goodbye to my siblings and mother. That hurry might have saved my life, for a lot of the others who attended the Expo, the skin cream ate down all the way to their bones. Especially those who hadn’t just applied the skin to their arms, but had decided to fully apply it after the Expo… I feel so horrible for them. Delayed reaction after contact, severity worsened over time, I’ve been told.

You probably know the rest… Big trial, several executives forced to pay for myself and the other survivors' rehabilitation, and I still receive a small chunk of money every month in the mail but… Nobody was ever forced to apologize. The company simply shut down, and the people who made the decision to rush testing of the cream presumedly went on to work at other companies. I never even got to confront them face to face. I wish I could, you know. I don’t even know what they look like, the people who did this to me. I can’t even spit in their face…

(Pause)

K: That was nice. My arm hurts a lot less now that I’ve talked to you about all of this. Thank you.

End interview