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My cousin in Chicago actually got this done. I do worry about her sometimes...
Thought perms were passe? Blink again
Katy Chamberlin, a 35-year-old history student at the City College of San Francisco, has tried everything under the sun to obtain luscious, curly eyelashes. She's used mascara, metal curling irons and even some decidedly unconventional methods.
During high school, she sprayed mousse into the palm of her hand and then used her fingers to dab some of the sticky foam onto her eyelashes. Nothing really worked, she said.
Then she discovered the eyelash perm.
“It’s one of those things that only I notice,” Chamberlin said. “But it makes you feel good.”
The eyelash perm is the latest beauty treatment designed to accentuate the eyes, following eyelash tinting, eyelash extensions or permanent eyeliner.
The roughly 100 to 150 lashes that border each eyelid seem like an improbable target for a hair treatment commonly associated with dozens of tiny curlers and smelly solutions, but salons that offer the procedure insist that it is safe, and they point to legions of satisfied customers.
At the Shizuka Spa in Midtown Manhattan, owner Shizuka Bernstein says she was trained by a “sensei of eyelash perming" in Japan, where the treatment has been popular for the last few years. Bernstein and other estheticians say the procedure originated in France, though none of them can say who invented it.
Bernstein taught her employee Mizaki Yanagawa to apply the treatment, which involves several meticulous steps. First Yanagawa chooses one of four sizes of rubber rods-—the bigger the rod, the looser and less dramatic the curl. Yanagawa glues the rod to the base of the eyelid, applies a small amount of glue to the rod and then carefully manipulates each lash with a toothpick so that the lashes are secured and curled over the rod. Yanagawa also uses a paintbrush, a Q-tip and a flat wooden stick to tame each lash. The client keeps her eyes closed with gauze taped underneath the eye.
Then, Yanagawa dabs perming solution on the lashes and covers the rod and lashes with plastic wrap for about 17 minutes. A neutralizer is applied for another 17 minutes and then a conditioner for a few minutes more. Eye-makeup remover breaks up the glue to help remove the rod. Finally, the eyes are flushed out with distilled water.
The perming process takes about an hour. It generally costs $60 or more and is supposed to last for a month and a half.
Having defined lashes has been a beauty standard since the time of Cleopatra, said Teresa Riordan, the author of the book “Inventing Beauty: A History of the Innovations That Have Made Us Beautiful.”
“But I think in the past century we have seen an arms buildup in terms of what the average woman wields in her eyelash arsenal,” she said. “False eyelashes, waterproof mascaras, lash builders have all changed our ideas of what constitutes a beautiful set of eyes. It's really become much more exaggerated.”
In ancient times, women used to darken their lashes and eyelids using kohl, which could be made from onion water or donkey liver mixed with oil and opium or, worse yet, malachite, copper, iron and lead. According to Riordan’s book, a beauty writer in 1834 suggested using “lampblack,” the residue resulting from holding a saucer over a gas lamp, to color the eyes.
While many women are embracing the eyelash perm, there are safety concerns.
“Why would anyone do this?” asked Thomas Steinemann, an ophthalmologist in Cleveland. “There are enough risks in the world.”
Steinemann said he had seen only one patient who had the treatment, two years ago. The patient complained of irritation and pain, and that was enough to make Steinemann skeptical of the procedure. The patient had several days of discomfort, though she eventually felt better after lubricating her eyes with artificial tear drops.
In 1938, Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration more regulatory powers over such products after an eyelash dye caused cases of blindness and disfigurement. But the FDA is not required to approve cosmetics that are put out on the market. If the product is deemed to be hazardous, then the agency can demand that it be taken off the shelves.
In July 2004 the state board of Barbering and Cosmetology in Colorado banned eyelash perming, basing its decision on a 1989 FDA bulletin that warned against a specific eyelash perming cream.
Violet Leonard, 35, a freelance writer who lives in Oakland, Calif., has had an eyelash perm three times. She says the perm makes her eyes look “flirty,” and she doesn’t feel the need to wear mascara.
She acknowledges that the perm does sting around the eyes, but she says it’s worth not having to wrestle with an eyelash curler every morning.
“Your eyes water, you’re blinking a lot, but because it doesn’t take a lot of time, it’s easy to get over,” Leonard said.
Her last experience, however, wasn’t very successful, she said. Because smaller rods were used, her eyelashes were wound so tight that they turned out too curly—-she could feel her eyelashes touching her eyelid each time she blinked. The perm relaxed a little after about two weeks. But the experience won't keep Leonard from getting another perm before her wedding next year, she said.
Bernstein said it was important to go to a professional for the procedure. She warns of “a lot of bad salons” that can botch a perm.
“Women should be ever alert to risks in the high-stakes game of beauty innovation,” Riordan said. “It's not that innovators intend to cause harm, but in their entrepreneurial exuberance, as history shows, they sometimes cause great injury.”
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