In the summer of 2022, a woman by the username, Chef. Pii, posted a video on her Tiktok that would soon become viral and change her life forever. Her viral video consisted of her dipping a chicken wing into what seemed to be a neon pink sauce. This baffled viewers, leaving them with several questions such as, “What is this?”, “What is this sauce made out of?”, “What does it taste like?”, “Why does it look like Pepto Bismol?”, and “Who is Chef Pii?”

Chef Pii, the creator of the Pink Sauce, is a private chef from Miami who specializes in catering. According to her website, Chefpii, she has a “passion for creating delectably unique meals,” and that’s exactly what she accomplished when making the original Pink Sauce. 

Shortly after becoming a viral sensation, Chef Pii made the Pink Sauce available for consumers to buy for the hefty price of $20. Excited to taste the mysterious sauce themselves, consumers became even more confused about the sauce and were now extremely concerned once their bottle of sauce arrived at their doorsteps. 

In one Tiktok user’s, BeautifulMonnie, video, she shows how the Pink Sauce arrived at her doorsteps. A giant exploded mess. Even saying, “No ma’am” and “The Pink Sauce is canceled” as she displays the sauce in its gooey and icky state. During the unboxing she also complains about a stinky odor. 

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BeautifulMonnie is not alone. Other Pink Sauce consumers also say that their bottles, “relieved itselves” or came in the mail “bloated”. 

Customers have come across several other red flags about the Pink Sauce. These include but are not limited to: the color of the sauce is not consistent (either neon pink, light pink, or beige), claimed to contain 444 servings, lacked an expiration date, and includes milk but had no instructions to keep the bottle refrigerated. 

Chef Pii realized her mistakes and corrected them in later batches. 

Currently she is working with Dave’s Gourmet, known for Dave’s Insanity Sauce, to bring a new and improved version of the Pink Sauce to stores and restaurants. 

After months of back and forth drama, what can we learn from the Pink Sauce controversy? 

Perhaps most significantly, we shouldn’t blindly buy everything we see on Tiktok without double checking first as not buying the Pink Sauce right when it was released could save buyers money and avoid them getting sick from eating an unrefrigerated sauce. 

We should also be patient. Several of the critiques of the condiment came from the product’s production being rushed in order to profit off of the Tiktok hype before it’s forgotten.