A HORRIFIED admin assistant has issued a warning after experiencing an awful allergic reaction to hair dye.

Kelly Kruppner’s entire head swelled up, leaving her husband struggling to recognize her before she was rushed to hospital.

The 26-year-old got her naturally red hair professionally dyed dark brown Oct. 24 and initially, there were no problems.

But she woke up the following night to discover her face and head had ballooned, making her almost unrecognizable to her gobsmacked husband, Brandon Sprague, 24.

The hairstylist had applied a patch test for the dye behind Kruppner’s ear an hour before doing her hair — but had failed to leave enough time for the delayed allergic reaction to show up.

As the reaction progressed, Kruppner says her scalp was covered in painful chemical burns that doctors have warned will take a month to heal, during which she cannot use shampoo due to the severity of the burns.

Kruppner, from Brockport, New York, the U.S., said: “It was fine throughout the dying and it felt good even after and then the next morning I had these rash type things that kind of looked like I got a really bad sunburn.

“Then I woke up at midnight on Monday night and my face was all blown up and swollen and the rashes were even worse and looked more like burns — they were blistering and scabbing.

“My husband woke up and I told him not to turn the light on because I looked so bad but he still turned the light on and he definitely got a shock. I scared him.

“It was really painful and each day it just got worse and more swollen. By Wednesday my eyes were almost completely swollen shut.”

Emergency doctors told her it was the worst reaction they’d ever seen from hair dye and told her to stay off work for a week since her eyes were almost swollen shut, making it unsafe for her to drive.

(SD-Agencies)