Eyelash Tinting Goes Painfully Wrong

By Sherrie Gulmahamad on December 29th, 2009

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The Daily Mail is reporting that a British woman had an extreme and painful allergic reaction to an eyelash tinting procedure.  Carly Lewis, a 26 year old bank clerk, went in to a salon for beauty procedures she has had done regularly in the past, but this time her eyes reacted to the dye right away.  Days later her eyes had swollen shut and she had to be taken to the hospital. Lewis has been prescribed eye drops, antihistamines and steroids to combat the reaction.

“I woke up on Monday and I couldn’t open them because they were stuck together. It was agony and really, really itchy.”

In America, the Food and Drug Administration discourages women from dying their eyelashes, yet many salons openly offer this service.  This is straight from the FDA website:

“Permanent eyelash and eyebrow tints and dyes have been known to cause serious eye injuries, including blindness.. There are no color additives approved by FDA for permanent dyeing or tinting of eyelashes and eyebrows.”

This is not the only recent news about the eye area.  Latisse, the first eyelash-lengthening drug  to be approved by the FDA, also carries such risks as permanent iris and eyelid darkening and “visual disturbance” – which frankly, sounds disturbing.

We would like to hear from you – do you get your eyelashes tinted regularly and have you had any serious side effects? And is changing the color of your eyelids worth the hope of lengthening your lashes?