A beauty treatment allegedly used by Egyptian queen Cleopatra to preserve her youthful looks is being offered by parlours on the mainland with less than golden results, a CCTV report said last night.
One customer, Zheng Xiaochun , paid 13,800 yuan to have 12 golden threads thinner than a human hair woven around her eyes three years ago at a parlour in Guangzhou, according to the report. Within a month, she started to feel discomfort around her eyes such as swelling and tiredness.
The discomfort persisted after three more operations at the beauty parlour and the removal of one of the threads.
The procedure was performed by Xu Yanfeng, who was revealed by the report to be the owner of a local factory supplying golden thread.
Dr Xu claimed he read on the internet that Cleopatra underwent the procedure, but experts said there was no evidence that the queen had golden threads sewn into her face.
The treatment is also available in Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Shenyang . One beauty parlour in Shenzhen says it has performed the operation on 133 people.