The video has been viewed more than 53.9 million times and is both terrifyingly visceral and mildly claustrophobic. It’s also undeniably rewatchable.
Martel, a 20-something candle-maker who brought international fame to her family candle business, Guernsey Candles, typically posts the sort of bright, relaxingly methodical content that’s standard for ‘oddly satisfying’ social media cottage-industries such as slime.
In Martel’s videos, she might scrape off thick layers of fuschia and electric yellow candle buildup and plop it into hot liquid wax, or chop up a blue-green wax cylinder to show a differently shaped, multicolored interior. The clips are a comforting, entertaining escape in which nothing much happens besides quiet and sensory titillation: here come the bright colors, the satisfying chomp of wax being cut, the low splash of clear, fresh water as it consumes a wax creation.
In her celebratory June 21 TikTok, Martel shows viewers her hand, pre-wax layers, with its long, nicely manicured nails — then begins to dip it into 100 layers of wax — dunking the hand into vivid hues of yellow, pink, blue, and white.
It quickly grows monstrous. As Martel continues to add new layers, the waxen mass grows thicker and more misshapen, until it looks like “a boxing glove,” “human heart,” or a “cosplay as Mr. Krabs,” according to commenters.
In the end, Martel sinks her wax-encased hand into a tub of water and the 100-layer mold slips off with a splash.
In part two, posted on June 24, Martel cuts the wax mass open with surgical proficiency to show viewers the different colored layers — slicing into the fine layers and tearing off sections with satisfying snaps.
Alongside comments about how delicious the “forbidden Fruit by the Foot” looked came specific requests for Martel’s content in the future: “Can you do a 200 layer candle next @chartel please xx.”
TikTok creator Charlotte Martel did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.