A video showing a woman dyeing Easter eggs inside her toilet bowl has horrified millions of social media users, and who can blame them?
The video, shared by Instagram content creator Kate Heintzelman, quickly went viral, with over 3 million views in just a few days.
In the clip, Heintzelman drops around two dozen eggs into the toilet, then adds food colouring, baking soda and a whole gallon of vinegar, creating a fizzy reaction that transforms the eggs into bright, tie-dye Easter decorations.
Sounds festive until you realise ... it's literally in a toilet.
Viewers were quick to express their disgust. "That's just disgusting, and who has money to waste on that many eggs?"
Another added, "Kate you could have done the same process in a huge bowl ... this is the reason I don't eat at potlucks."
While Heintzelman insists the eggs were purely for display and never intended to be eaten, people weren’t having it.
“We don’t eat them,” she explained in a follow-up. “They just sit on the counter for decoration.”
Still, many weren’t convinced. Even if they’re not meant for eating, using a toilet - a literal germ playground - as a dyeing station raised more than a few eyebrows.
And yes, toilets are crawling with bacteria. Studies show that the average toilet bowl contains over 3.2 million bacteria per square inch.
Even if it looks clean, it’s still a hotspot for E. coli, staphylococcus, and other nasty bugs. Not exactly the kind of place you'd want to dip anything, even for decoration.
Some users pointed out a more sensitive issue, too. “This can be seen as insulting the feelings of believers. Painted eggs are associated with religion,” one commenter wrote.
And they have a point. In many Christian traditions, dyed eggs symbolise new life and the resurrection of Christ. Turning that into a toilet bowl project? Not exactly reverent.
Heintzelman, who identifies as Christian herself, claimed the backlash took her by surprise. She said the idea came to her after a messy dyeing attempt in her kitchen that left her counters stained. “So I said, ‘I’m just going to do it in the toilet because I don’t care if that gets stained,’” she said.
And while we’ve all seen some wild DIY hacks on the internet, this one feels like it flushed common sense right down the drain.
Because, at the end of the day, no matter how “clean” the toilet might seem or how harmless the intention, there are just some places eggs don’t belong. And the loo is definitely one of them.