The Beauty Product That Left 1 Woman Paralyzed

We have to admit — we can get a little lazy when it comes to beauty tool hygiene. After all, if we're using the same products day after day, do we really have to wash our brushes every week? Turns out, keeping them clean is a matter of life and death. According to Yahoo!, a young mother in Australia will never walk again because of a dirty brush.

Jo Gilchrist believes she was infected by a deadly form of a staph infection known as MRSA after she borrowed a friend's makeup brush to hide a pimple. When the infection spread to her spine, Gilchrist shrugged off the pain, believing it to be caused by bad posture. However, she soon hurt so much that she couldn't get out of bed. "I rate the pain worse than childbirth," she told Warwick Daily News. "I literally thought I was going to die." Doctors struggled to diagnose Gilchrist as she began losing all sensation in her body. "They told me if it went up my arms and chest I would have to learn to breathe again," she said. She soon learned she had MRSA.

MRSA is highly resistant to antibiotics, so by the time the doctors caught it, the infection had already viciously attacked her spine, leaving her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Gilchrist remains optimistic and hopes to prove the doctors wrong. This harrowing tale is a huge wake-up call for us. Tonight, we'll be thoroughly sanitizing all of our tools. Pick up some tricks on how to wash your makeup brushes here.