‘Just a light snack’: TikToker left baffled, besieged by ants, after bizarre Temu lamp purchase

Everyone has probably been scammed at least once in their online shopping ventures. In fact, exposing these kinds of scams has even become a popular trend on social media, and no matter how many times Safiya Nygaard orders things from Instagram, we can’t help but click to see the knockoffs.

It’s also no surprise that some of the weirdest and scammiest products come from apps like Temu and Aliexpress. After all, you get what you pay for and TikTok user FrogInAHatGirl (@froginahatgirl) learned this lesson the hard way. While trying to buy a cute, croissant-shaped accent lamp at an affordable price, her sisters turned to Temu — the hub of all things cheap and cheaply made.

They found the quirky lamp and ordered it. However, after receiving it, the TikTok user left her new lamp on her bedside table on a hot summer day — which typically wouldn’t be a cause for concern with a lamp. So, imagine her shock when she returned home to find hundreds of ants swarming the lamp, aggressively chewing on it. But why were they interested in a fake croissant?

Well, that’s because technically, it wasn’t fake at all. It turns out the girl’s new “lamp” was nothing more than a real croissant coated in resin. You heard that right — the lamp was simply a croissant, covered in resin, with a plastic battery case attached to the bottom.

To make things even more bizarre, the girl decided to break the lamp in half to confirm if it was, in fact, a resin-coated croissant. And surprisingly enough, it crumbled just like a real croissant would. “I’m French and your hypothesis is valid, it is indeed a real croissant,” said a French user.

At this point, we’ve come to accept that Temu is the kind of place where they’d hollow out a croissant, stick in some batteries, and call it a lamp. One user even commented, “I can explain! You bought something from Temu.” But the revelations didn’t stop there. The TikTok user, still skeptical about whether it was truly a croissant, took a piece of the bit with resin-free crust and ate it — she ate the Temu croissant lamp.

And guess what? To no one’s surprise, it was indeed a croissant. It looked like a croissant, it tasted like a croissant — it wasn’t supposed to be a croissant, but it absolutely was a croissant. “Just a light snack,” joked one commenter. “Temu croissant lamp mukbang is wild,” added another. Maybe she did have an original experience here, after all.

Of course, eating something coated in resin and anti-fungal solution is risky enough (and even poisonous, according to Medline Plus), but eating it knowing it came from Temu is a whole other level of crazy. “The moment you broke it, I could tell it was real. Not once did tasting it cross my mind,” someone commented. “I love that you ate it. That part was important.” It turns out though, Temu is not the only place turning food into household items.

While the idea of coating food with resin sounds quite disgusting — and, frankly, a potential health hazard — when done carefully, it can create stunning pieces. This croissant lamp concept was likely inspired by Japanese artist Yukiko Morita, who uses real bread and pastries to craft ornamental lamps. She coats them in resin, hollows them out, and preserves them with an anti-fungal coating, resulting in beautifully realistic pieces, that are surely a lot more expensive than the Temu croissant.

Regardless of the origin, the comment section was naturally flooded with users sharing their own recent purchases, fearing they might also be made from real objects. “I gotta check my cat lamp I got from Temu,” one person commented. Others mentioned shrimp keychains, dog lamps, and a variety of items, wondering if their purchases were just things covered in resin. Hopefully, the cat and dog lamps weren’t real, at least.