Jessica Simpson posted a bizarre video to Twitter yesterday that featured her getting one of her ears candled while being videotaped and mildly taunted by her best friend, hairdresser Ken Paves. Ear candling involves sticking a conical wax tube in your ear, available at many health food stores, and lighting it on fire. People claim that the heat and smoke suck the wax out of the ear, but the practice has never been proven effective and can be dangerous. As you can see from the video above, there’s a high chance of the rapidly burning candle falling on a bed or your hair.

You’re supposed to have a friend watching you at all times to trim the candle tip down periodically. You’re also supposed to use a disposable pie tin so that if the tip falls it’s onto a non-flammable surface. A pie tin also offers a little more coverage with sides and a deeper base. Simpson used a pizza box cut in a circle which can probably catch on fire and would just send the burning candle bits off to her neck or the top of her head. It seems to have worked out ok for her or she would have Tweeted that her hair caught on fire. Don’t try this at home, though!

I tried ear candling in college. I used a pie tin underneath as the ear candling package recommended, and my friend Mona was watching me. The burning candle tip still fell on my head and burned out a large chunk of the side of my hair. I was mortified! My hairdresser, also named Ken, was upset by the damage and had to do some creative work to cover it up. I wish my Ken could have been there to make sure the damage never happened in the first place. He wouldn’t have stood by and laughed while my hair was in peril!