A distraught teenage girl has claimed her hairdresser left her nearly bald ahead of her 15th birthday after she went in to touch up the colour of her roots and a few minutes later all her hair was in the bin.

The incident took place in the city of Lanus in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires on an unspecified recent date.

The girl has been named as Sheila Rivas, and she was looking forward to celebrating her 15th birthday party, which is a big celebration in Latin America and is usually accompanied by important rituals welcoming the birthday girl into womanhood.

But what was supposed to be a quick stop by the hairdresser’s to have some colour added to her roots quickly turned into a nightmare for Sheila, who said that when the hairdresser started rinsing her hair, it all fell out.

Sheila, who is reportedly an avid figure skater, claims the hairdresser was negligent, adding: “I couldn’t believe it, I saw my hair everywhere. She was throwing my hair in a rubbish bin and didn’t tell me anything. She didn’t want me to send messages to my mum.”

She added that the hairdresser, who has not been named, turned up the music to make it difficult for the teenager to call her mother.

The teenager has reportedly been given a treatment to help her hair recover, but shr must wear a wig in the meantime, including to her 15th birthday bash, known in Latin America as a ‘quinceanera’.

The teenager’s aunt, who has been named as Carolina Azcona, said: “This has destroyed my niece.”

The girl’s mother, Veronica Rose, said: “She had her for over an hour and a half when she always leaves after 40 minutes.”

The mother added: “When she went to rinse her in the sink, she lost all her hair.”

She said she “took her to another hairdresser to see if they could do anything, but she was totally bald.”

The family said they tried to file a complaint with the local police station, but they were referred to petitioning the civil courts for damages. It is not thought that the police are investigating the incident.