Pink sauce is on everyone’s lips right now, but why? The
viral sauce is the must-have item of the summer, but also one of the biggest
controversies on TikTok right now.
Chef Pii, a private chef in Miami invented the sauce, which she says is a blend of water,
sunflower seed oil, raw honey, distilled vinegar, garlic, pitaya, pink Himalayan
sea, plus spices, a bit of lemon and milk. Though Chef Pii says she can’t
really describe the flavor, the sauce is said to taste like a sweet ranch
dressing and, according to Chef Pii, can be put on everything. In many videos,
she slathers it on tacos, burgers, chicken wings, with the sauce running down
her arms and dripping down the food.
The pink color of the sauce comes from the pitaya, also known
as dragon fruit. Here’s where the controversy comes in. Chef Pii, who promoted
the sauce on TikTok, then sold the sauce to her followers, who gave some varied
reviews. Some love it, some think it’s not worth the $20 per bottle price point.
Some are skeptical that the color and consistency of the product seem to vary
so much from batch to batch.
Others have reported worse issues, like exploded bottles in padded
envelopes, broken seals, and then, there’s the issue with the labels, which boast
444 one tablespoon servings per package, mathematically impossible for the size
of the bottle, with typos and misspellings in the ingredient list.
Chef Pii has made videos to apologize for the labeling and
packaging issues, vowing that they will be fixed and explained the color
variations occur due to the coloring in the natural ingredients varying. Currently,
the sauce is sold out online.
How did a condiment become the moment, though? Was it the Barbiecore pink color? A snowball effect of a few influencers trying the sauce?
Chef Pii said in a recent video that the same clout-chasing that initially made
the sauce takeoff ultimately made her an online villain. Regardless, each sale
of sauce is money in Chef Pii’s pocket.
Meanwhile, tales of illness from the sauce are also going
viral. Though those (and an alleged death, supposedly a hoax) have yet to be
confirmed, the sauce seems like a risky proposition beyond the hole it will
leave in your wallet. The FDA is now performing an investigation.
Would you risk it all for the sauce, especially if the video
might blow up your account if you sample it on TikTok? There’s surely easier
ways to get famous (looking at you, Tide pods). We hope the sauce turns out to
be harmless and popular strictly because of its flavor and fun color, but it’s
off to a rough start.