Niuyoumian was 15 when she first put on makeup. And, she says, she never took it off again.
Now 37, she lives in Jilin province in northeastern China, and in a video published in early June 2025, she showed her face very swollen, red, and covered in rashes. She says her reasoning was simple: at night she only washed with water, and in the morning she put on makeup again, because it wasn’t worth taking it off if she was going to put it on again the next day. She says her skin problems began at 14, with an acne cream that allegedly triggered allergic reactions, and that her family circumstances led her to use cheap liquid foundation.
According to other media outlets that covered her case, when her skin broke down, she didn’t see a dermatologist but went to an aesthetics clinic, where she received injections and, she says, everything got worse. She describes the sensation as thousands of tiny ants crawling across her face. She calls it “hormone face”. No medical diagnosis has confirmed this, and the real cause has yet to be established.