In the age of mandatory falsies and crazy-long extensions, it seems like people will go to any length — no pun intended — for gorgeous eyelashes.
But now, people are apparently perming their eyelashes at home for a thickened, permanently curled look. And yeah, it's exactly as horrifying — and dangerous — as you'd imagine.
We first spotted this — where else? — on Reddit.
Though "lash lifts" are nothing new, DIYing them is DEFINITELY a new development. Over on the Asian Beauty subreddit, a poster shared her at-home eyelash perming story — and pictures.
Warning: if you don't like borderline-gross eye stuff, you might want to skip ahead. There's an intense picture coming up.
Here's her "before" picture. On the left: her lashes after curling with a standard eyelash curler. On the right: her naturally straight lashes.
She wrote "I hate my straight lashes and I will curl them with an eyelash curler almost every day. Heard about lash perms and lifts and thought – no need to curl your lashes for 2 months?! YES."
The poster tried a professional lash perm, but was unimpressed; she says she paid $89 and still had to curl her eyelashes every day.
Then, inspiration struck. "I saw a blog post on a lash perming home kit and on a whim, bought a kit and some silicone eyelash pads to see if I could do a better job myself and here are the results."
Here is the "during" photo, which is 100% terrifying.
*SCREAMING*
OK that's out of my system.
She says that the kit included glue so that you can stick your lashes to the silicon pads, then apply the perm solution over top, which will curl them. "It's not too hard," she wrote. "Just tedious. Took me over an hour because I could only do one eye at a time. The hardest part is gluing your lashes to the pad and making sure they're glued on straight and fanned out. Probably took me 10 minutes to make sure they were glued perfect (I used toothpicks)."
Here are her results, which took about an hour to achieve.
According to her post, her lashes stayed permed for around 8 weeks, at which point the hairs began to fall out (which is normal). Apparently, if you don't plan to get them lifted again, the grow-out can be kind of crazy — "You end up with lashes going in all different directions – some straight, some still curved, some kinking to the left or right."
However! Just because you technically CAN perm your lashes at home doesn't mean that you SHOULD — it's really dangerous!
Any time you put chemicals near your eyes, you are running some major risks — infections, retinal burns, even blindness. You can lessen that risk by going to a professional, but can't eliminate it altogether — plus lash perms have not been approved by the FDA. So keep that in mind.
And if the Food and Drug Administration thinks that this chemical process is too dangerous for trained professionals to do, it is FOR SURE a TERRIBLE idea for you to do yourself. I am very glad this Redditor wasn't hurt as she did her lashes, but that's no guarantee that you wouldn't be. You only get two eyes — don't take risks with them!
This is basically a very elaborate beauty-related game of Would You Rather.
WOULD YOU RATHER: perm your eyelashes and risk going blind, BUT have curly eyelashes for six to eight weeks… OR spend three seconds curling your eyelashes in the morning and all you have to worry about is poking your contacts with the mascara wand?
I mean, I'll stick with my trusty eyelash curler. I have the the NARS Eyelash Curler ($20, NARS Cosmetics) which I like a lot, and also the Sephora Collection Curler with the pink pads ($17, Sephora). I use one of these two every day, then apply two coats of mascara, and I am happy with the curl quality of my eyelashes.
Would you ever consider getting a lash perm, IF it was safe and affordable?
Nobody tell me you'd DIY an eyelash lift at home, because I will get very upset. Anyway. Let me know in the comments, or over on Facebook!
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
