Eyeing false lashes
Thirteen years ago I got cancer and went bald from chemotherapy.
A week before the first treatment, my friend went with me to the wig salon, where they shaved my head and fitted me for two wildly expensive wigs designed to more-or-less mimic the hairstyle I was losing.
I never wore them because they were hot, and tight. I got by with scarves, baseball caps and avoiding mirrors. When I finally did take a good look at myself, I realized the worst part of being bald was not losing my tresses, but losing the eyebrows and eyelashes. That was what made me look sick.
The eyebrows I could pencil in, sort of. The lashes were a bigger challenge. All my life people have told me what big eyes I have, and yes, they are large and green. But without the fringe of lashes to soften things, I had the startled look of a small, nocturnal primate (google a tarsier).
Eyelash extensions! I thought, and off I went to a salon where, at considerable expense, a kind woman glued on single lashes, one by one, the way one might plant tree seedlings. The lashes were so long they poked me in the place where my eyebrows used to be. I thought about trimming them but nobody wants to have scissors that close to their eyeballs, and anyway, the lashes eventually fell out and I was back to looking startled.
This was after I’d tried do-it-yourself false lash strips, the cheap kind you get at the drugstore. Glue is required, as is ambidextrous double-jointedness of the wrists; after a half-hour trying to get the first one to stick I gave up.
Which brings me to the reason I’m remembering all of this. False eyelashes are ubiquitous now, seen on many spiffily dressed young people on red carpets but also on people in everyday clothing just doing the grocery shopping or walking the dog. False lashes have become such a common part of routine grooming that even the New York Times did a big article about it.
My daughter, who has beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, does not need false lashes, but she’s been known to show up at my door wearing them. They do add some depth to a face, but who has the time? She says it’s just a part of getting ready for the day, no more challenging than any other part of her makeup routine.
She doesn’t wear them every day, but many young women her age do. I see them everywhere now, as common as a messy bun hairdo or cartilage piercing. I’ve seen women wearing lashes so long and full you’d think they’d struggle to keep their eyes open.
The Times article mentioned a new kind of fake lash that adheres to the underside of the lashes instead of sitting atop them. They cost about $150. That’s a hard pass.
I did wear false lashes once, two years ago for an elegant Emmy award event. The stylist who did my hair put them on for me. They felt weird, like crawling bugs or something. When a co-worker greeted me that night, she immediately asked if I was wearing false lashes – not what I was going for.
My eyelashes did come back after chemotherapy. One day I had none and the next morning, they were there. So were my brows, and eventually the rest of my follicles woke up. The chemotherapy, nurses told me, sometimes causes lashes to grow back longer. I think mine did. Now all I need is an eyelash curler and some mascara – and someplace to go.
And no glue.