Mom warns about Bunchems after daughter gets more than 50 of them tangled in her hair
Bunchems do not go in the hair.
Rinse and repeat: Bunchems do not go in the hair.
That is a lesson that Arkansas mom Jasmine Nikunen learned the hard way last month when more than 50 of the squishy little balls got stuck in her 5-year-old daughter’s long, blonde hair.
Her daughter, Scarlett, was playing with her younger cousin when said cousin dumped a bucket of Bunchems on top of her head, Nikunen told KTHV in Little Rock.
“Collin, who is three, poured the whole bucket over her head and she tried to shake them out and they immediately started to mat up like dreadlocks,” Nikunen told the TV station.
Bunchems are squishy, quarter-sized balls with tiny hooks “that allow them to connect together to create different shapes,” Babble explained in 2015, when Bunchems were listed on Target’s Top Toys list.
Paul Reynolds, a designer for Canadian toy company Spin Master, created them for young boys and girls “when he saw how burs stuck to his socks while hiking with his daughter,” Babble wrote.
Nikunen told KTHV she had never heard of Bunchems, so didn’t realize they came with a warning about getting stuck in hair.
“Please tie hair back before play,” the YouTube instructionals warn.
A cry for help on Dec. 30 on a North LIttle Rock neighborhood Facebook page was posted by Scarlett’s father, Leland Gough, according to Working Mother. He also shared a photo of his daughter’s hair looking like a colorful rat’s nest.
“Until yesterday my baby had the most beautiful hair you could ever imagine. Are there any stylists who can help with bunchems?” he wrote on the post, which was deleted on Friday as news outlets told the story.
“This happened to clean dry hair in less than 5 minutes and we’ve been trying for 2 days now. PLEASE HELP!!?”
Knowing the hair-raising trouble Bunchems can cause, the toy maker “has marked packages with a warning to keep the toys away from hair and pets,” writes USA Today.
“In 2015, the company released an instructional video for how to remove the balls from hair using hair conditioner and vegetable oil.”
Gough told Facebook user Sarah Elizabeth that they had tried the vegetable-oil-and-conditioner remedy “for a couple days now... they have these little hooks on the end of each ball it’s like getting stuck in a burr patch only worse.”
Words of sympathy and solutions poured in on the post, which was deleted on Friday.
“Wd40.”
“A new bob might be the easiest solution.”
“I’m a stylist and you’ll need LOTS of conditioner!! And a wide tooth comb.”
“There’s a recipe with fabric softener and water that supposedly helps with doll hair ... maybe that would help! So sorry!!”
“I covered my daughters hair in coconut oil turned on a movie and let her watch it. I took easy sections and worked from bottom up with little tweezers, comb, and scissors. As soon as you get a section free make sure to put it in a pony tail away from the toys from hell,” another mom advised.
Nikunen and a team of helping hands were eventually able to extricate the mess.
“It took six hands, 12 and a half hours, to get them out,” she told KTHV. “We had about 12 containers of coconut oil and vegetable oil and any hair oil you could think of and we drenched her in it.”