21 year old Nigerian acid attack victim gets new eye brows!

21 year old Naomi Oni who had acid hurled over her face, head and body as she made her way home to Dagenham after her shift at Westfield's Victoria's Secret store last December, finally gets her eye brows restored.

Naomi had a sophisticated semi-permanent make-up treatment that tattoos on the eyebrows as individual hairs, mimicking the effect of real brows.

She said: 

'It has been very difficult to come to terms with.My doctors have been brilliant but it will take years of laser surgery to repair my face.There is only so much you can do at any one time – then there is long healing process before you can undergo the next stage of the treatment.It is only now that I had been able to have semi-permanent make-up on my face.'I loved having the treatment – it feels so good to have my eyebrows back.
'What I loved about the treatment was its intricacy – it is a form of cosmetic tattooing.  It is the closest you can get to mimicking the appearance of the original brow.
I did get a bit emotional when I saw them. It’s the first time I have seen myself with eyebrows for almost a year.'

concerning her attack, Naomi said:

'I asked, "why me?" I work hard, I’m a good person.I’m the same person now but stronger.I want to say to my attacker, "You can burn my skin but you can’t burn my soul."

It would be recalled Naomi was on the phone to her boyfriend after returning from work when she was attacked in Dagenham, Essex, on December 30 last year.

According to her, "I felt a splash – that’s when I thought, someone’s out to kill me.I just started running straight home. I knew it was acid. It feels like something is eating way at your skin. I felt it most on my scalp, more than my face."

When she arrived home shouting and banging on the door, screaming "acid, acid". Her family came to the door thinking she was excited about something.

Then when her mother opened the door, Naomi said everyone’s faces just dropped.

Naomi is on leave from her job at Victoria's Secret lingerie store at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, East London, while she recovers.

She eventually plans to return to work and pursue her dream of becoming a make-up artist.

Naomi was recently  honoured for her bravery with a prize at the Inspiration for Women Awards at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea.

 

Naomi's attacker has been identifed as Mary Konye, a Nigerian also 21, from Canning Town, East London; she is currently facing trial has been charged over the attack and will stand trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in January 2014.