Eye-lid to eye-sore

The pursuit of longer lashes is a thankless, endless task that scientists of the world are struggling with every day. I don't know if you've seen the labs that mascara is designed in on the tee vee but they're very high tech. There are touch screens, and holographic diagrams, and sometimes motorcycles for some reason. In these laboratories, there exists the money and know-how to be doing some Important Science (curing cancer, sterilizing Juggalos, etc.), but ladies are very demanding when it comes to Looking Fine, so these resources have been funneled into eyelash technology instead.

As someone who wears a lot of mascara and then wipes it off onto all my mother's white towels to be preserved forever, I understand this lust for fuller, thicker, tanglier, can't-fit-under-prescription-glasses eyelashes. Boys love eyelashes, right? Models have eyelashes, right? Eyes are the window to the soul and eyelashes are the attractive curtains styled after a Style at Home spread.

But somewhere along the line, between Eugene Rimmel whipping up the first batch of petroleum eyelash froth and Drew "Cover Girl" Barrymore winking uncontrollably at us during every commercial break, Lash Scientists became mad with power. "Why make mascara when we can make WHOLE NEW LASHES?" they presumably cackled, pouring prescription-strength hair growth formula on poor Brooke Shield's eyelids. And lo, Latisse (trademark, copyright, patent pending, black magic forever) was born.

 

"LATISSE^® solution is a prescription treatment for hypotrichosis used to grow eyelashes, making them longer, thicker and darker," says the website. But here is what else it says: Latisse miiiight darken the skin of your eyelid and that colouring mayyyy or may not be reversible. Oops! Latisse also commonly causes eye itchiness or redness, so hopefully your new thick lashes won't attract too much attention to the general upper face region. Although either of these side effects would be preferable to the smallest of the small print: Latisse users could experience "hair growth in other skin areas". Also, it takes 16 days to work. That is unacceptable, eyelash enhancement wise: if your friends are making you go to the Vanilla Room, you need to look sultry and smokey eyed RIGHT NOW.

Here is my rule of thumb: if something has to brag about FDA approved, I don't want to put it on my face.

 

How often has good ol' fashioned mascara turned against you? None, if you aren't counting accidental eye stabs. And if Lash Blast and Blast Lash and Xtreme Mid-nite XXL Lash Lash Big Lash aren't good enough for you, be patient: they are making crazier mascara every day! Some make little tubes around your eyelashes! Others have brushes that look like medieval toilet scrubbers! Even an albino person with alopecia can find something to give them that insomniac goth racoon look that's somehow appropriate for the office and the club. Fake eyelashes! Those exist too! And unless you are drunk when you're applying them (which happens to me almost every Halloween so I am not even judging a little bit here) and just totally miss your eyelid, you won't wind up with long and luscious hairs protruding from your cheek like the world's creepiest Chia Pet.

Thanks anyways, Latisse!