Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House top
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Kristine. Today we are talking about something
Speaker 1: that a lot of women and some men are dusted
Speaker 1: with and emphasize and altar and tweak. We're talking about eyelashes,
Speaker 1: the blinky hairs on our faces. What they mean, what
Speaker 1: we use them for, and how we decorate them with
Speaker 1: the number one cosmetic in America, which is mascara. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and why eyelashes, long, lustrous eyelashes are considered such a
Speaker 1: feminine beauty trait. Why are we so obsessed with our eyelashes?
Speaker 1: Why Why am I so obsessed with my eyelashes? Caroline,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Why are you? Because they are considered
Speaker 1: I think of feminine beauty trade eight. I mean it's
Speaker 1: the first cosmetic that I really started wearing on the
Speaker 1: regular in high school. And if I wear anything, if
Speaker 1: I could only wear one thing out of my house
Speaker 1: makeup wise, it would be mascara. Yeah. I don't like to.
Speaker 1: I I forget to put mascara on sometimes, Like I'll
Speaker 1: put everything else on and I'll get to work and
Speaker 1: look at myself in the bathroom mirror and be like,
Speaker 1: why do I look strange? Something is a miss on
Speaker 1: my face? And then I realized it's because I didn't
Speaker 1: make my eyelashes look a mile long. They're just like
Speaker 1: my normal, stumpy lashes. And it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's such a given that women care about their eyelashes.
Speaker 1: We will use mascara, And it seems like such a
Speaker 1: given that women will pay attention to their eyelashes, they
Speaker 1: will use a lot of mascara. This is something that
Speaker 1: we will care a lot about, and yet rarely do
Speaker 1: we ever stop and ponder, why why about this? You know,
Speaker 1: the strange set of hairs growing out of our eyelids.
Speaker 1: I distinctly remember being an early teen and reading like
Speaker 1: Team magazine or seventeen or whatever, and they had they
Speaker 1: would have like comments from boys being like, boys are
Speaker 1: wondering about this about you, And one of them, one
Speaker 1: of the guys said, I distinctly remember this, said I
Speaker 1: don't understand why girls were all that black gunk around
Speaker 1: their eyes. And I remember thinking like, yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: get it, do you, buddy? But of course I don't
Speaker 1: even know if I knew, like to back that up
Speaker 1: with anything. I just knew like we do because we
Speaker 1: like it. Yeah, and we should and and it makes
Speaker 1: us beautiful and feminine, right right? Uh, Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: why don't we kick off wisdom? Eyelash science just a
Speaker 1: brief primer on why we have these blinky hairs to
Speaker 1: begin with. And they are our eyeball protectors. They keep
Speaker 1: dust and debris out of our eyes. And they're also
Speaker 1: kind of like our eye whiskers. Yeah, if things get
Speaker 1: too closed, it'll irritate the eyelash and we'll close our
Speaker 1: eyes instinctively. They said a little signal saying, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: something too, something too close to your eye whole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's you going too the eye doctor. When they
Speaker 1: put that thing right up against your eye, that's torture. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or when they when they blow the air into your eyeball,
Speaker 1: your eyelashes like emergency, stop everything. Follow up podcast on
Speaker 1: Christen and Caroline's horror stories from the Eye Doctor. Right. So,
Speaker 1: I know that when I was younger, my mother always
Speaker 1: berated me, like, don't don't tug your eyelashes, they'll never
Speaker 1: grow back. But that's how you get the eye lash
Speaker 1: hairs that you can blow off to make wishes. I know. Well,
Speaker 1: so it took me like a long time to all
Speaker 1: of a sudden be like, let me think critically about
Speaker 1: what my mother said. But anyway, so, eyelashes developed pretty
Speaker 1: early actually when you are in uteroe sometime between twenty
Speaker 1: two and twenty eight weeks, and as a person outside
Speaker 1: of the uterus, they are continuously shedding and growing. So
Speaker 1: my mother was so wrong that that thing that she
Speaker 1: told me was wrong that they won't go back. Did
Speaker 1: she also tell you in the same sentence that if
Speaker 1: you cross your eyes, they'll get stuck. I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: sure she did. I'm sure she like said it and
Speaker 1: then was horrified and thought about how like, oh I
Speaker 1: thought I would never say that, but I'm turning into
Speaker 1: my mother. Um. They actually grow for three months before
Speaker 1: they fall out, so that's I think that's a lot
Speaker 1: shorter period than your head hair. Uh. And they can
Speaker 1: take seven eight weeks to grow back if you pull
Speaker 1: them out of your face. So I mean your mom
Speaker 1: was then kind of onto something. Yeah, they all grow back,
Speaker 1: but just slowly. Right. Did you ever know anyone who
Speaker 1: cut their eyelashes off a kid? I feel like I
Speaker 1: I know someone or maybe it was my mom telling
Speaker 1: me some horror story about why I shouldn't use scissors.
Speaker 1: I need to figure that out. There was some some
Speaker 1: uh some cautionary tale I was told at some point
Speaker 1: as a child about some other child who cut off
Speaker 1: over eyelashes, and it was bad news. Um. But there
Speaker 1: are a number of medications and health conditions that can
Speaker 1: cause people's eyelashes to fall out, things like styes, siasis,
Speaker 1: and thyroid conditions. And that's just three of a laundry
Speaker 1: list of things that we could go through. But we'll we'll,
Speaker 1: We'll save you the listening time, right. And another another
Speaker 1: factor is age. Follicles can slow or stop producing hair
Speaker 1: altogether as you age. Um. But so you know, eyelashes,
Speaker 1: they sound like they're pretty utilitarian. They they serve a purpose.
Speaker 1: They're just on our face to protect our eyeballs. There
Speaker 1: are eye whiskers. I think that is the cutest thing
Speaker 1: that could as the potential to sound gross, I feel like,
Speaker 1: but I think it's cute. I like it. I just
Speaker 1: picture like kitten whiskers anyway. UM. So if they're so utilitarian, though, like,
Speaker 1: why are we why are we so obsessed with emphasizing them? Well,
Speaker 1: Caroline it's the most appropriate explanation for a lot of
Speaker 1: these things because we've just done it for a really,
Speaker 1: really really long time, so let's just keep doing it right. Well,
Speaker 1: in the ancient Middle Eastern general people were blending minerals
Speaker 1: with oils and fats to darken their eyelashes and eyebrows,
Speaker 1: and they used coal as well. In ancient Egypt, though
Speaker 1: playing up the eyes was not just for women, it
Speaker 1: was the thing that everybody was doing. Um. They would
Speaker 1: make coal from villena, which is lead sulfide, malachite, and
Speaker 1: other minerals mixed with animal fats and I'm just like
Speaker 1: imagining that getting into my eye and just I feel
Speaker 1: like it would burn. But they would line their eyes
Speaker 1: in the cati style that we think of from like
Speaker 1: Cleopatra and whatever, for both spiritual and practical purposes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the practical side, this would reduce glear from the sun,
Speaker 1: kind of like the way that football players have the
Speaker 1: eye black that they wear sometimes. And it also helped
Speaker 1: keep insects away because galena was an effective insect repellent
Speaker 1: and disinfectant, which now I'm wondering why my messcara is
Speaker 1: not also an effective insect repellent, because that seems sandy.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to malachite, that other ingredient that
Speaker 1: they would mix into the coal, it was believed to
Speaker 1: be a gift from Hath or the goddess of love,
Speaker 1: So naturally you would want to put it on your
Speaker 1: eyes because it was also an aphrodisiac. Right, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's putting on I makeup and they're like, this is
Speaker 1: so handy. This very utilitarian, practical thing is also for
Speaker 1: sexy time. But it wasn't just for adults and sexy
Speaker 1: things kids, but also have their eyes smeared with coal
Speaker 1: to both. They thought it would both strengthen eyesight and
Speaker 1: protect them from evil spirits. And in terms of spirits,
Speaker 1: it also represented protection from basically like the eye um,
Speaker 1: but it represented the eye of Horace and replicated images
Speaker 1: of raw the sun god Caroline. Yet again, follow up question,
Speaker 1: why does my mess hera not also repel insects but
Speaker 1: also protect me from evil spirits? I would buy that mascara.
Speaker 1: That's an incredible claim. The FDA might have a problem
Speaker 1: with them. And if we move over to India, there
Speaker 1: was a similar trend, a cosmetic trend of lining the
Speaker 1: eyes as well with dark coal. And it actually gets
Speaker 1: to mention in the Kama Sutra, which was written in
Speaker 1: the fourth century, that provided a recipe for what it
Speaker 1: called quote an uncan of adornment that has the effect
Speaker 1: of making a person look lovely. So from the time
Speaker 1: of the Kama Sutra, this was a makeup tip. Hey,
Speaker 1: you want to look pretty well. It also cooled the
Speaker 1: eye area and reduced glare from the sun. So again,
Speaker 1: just like in ancient Egypt, there was a practice, a
Speaker 1: purpose and a spiritual slash sexy time purpose. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was a religious significance of men and children applying coal
Speaker 1: during a traditional ceremony called the serma. Yeah. And in
Speaker 1: ancient Rome women would darken their eyelashes and the whole
Speaker 1: eye area really with burnt cork. And if you move
Speaker 1: into the Middle Ages and then the Renaissance and then
Speaker 1: further into the Elizabethan area, total break with history because
Speaker 1: this is when we see eyes really becoming d emphasized,
Speaker 1: to the point where some women got rid of their
Speaker 1: brows and lashes all together in favor of highlighting the chests,
Speaker 1: which I get that's still the thing that people do,
Speaker 1: but also the forehead. Look at my beautiful forehead. I
Speaker 1: wonder if they were like minds of five head. Look
Speaker 1: at this big five head, though, don't you find me attractive?
Speaker 1: But by the time we get to the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: cosmetics were becoming more and more popular among Europeans and Americans,
Speaker 1: and this was when big names in cosmetics began to emerge.
Speaker 1: Because you have women going d i y with their mascara.
Speaker 1: They would darken their eyelashes and eyebrows using homemade methods
Speaker 1: like ashes and even still that ancient Roman method of
Speaker 1: using the burnt cork to darken their eyelashes as well.
Speaker 1: But then in eighteen thirty Eugene Remel came around and
Speaker 1: made things a little bit easier, right, A couple of
Speaker 1: decades after moving from France to London with his pop,
Speaker 1: he actually developed an eyelash darkener using coal dust and
Speaker 1: petroleum jellies, so not using animal fats this time. And
Speaker 1: it was so successful that Remmel became synonymous with mascara
Speaker 1: in a number of different languages. So we have Remal
Speaker 1: initially to think for this earliest kind of mascara as
Speaker 1: we start to think of it today. Though mascara was
Speaker 1: not necessarily for everyone at least according to Madame Lola
Speaker 1: Montez right in eighteen fifty eight. Uh, there's this book
Speaker 1: published that I am absolutely going to go back and
Speaker 1: read more of when I have time. Uh. It's Madame
Speaker 1: Lolamantez is the Arts of Beauty or Secrets of a
Speaker 1: Lady's Toilet with hints two gentlemen on the art of fascinating.
Speaker 1: A book for your fellow too, that's right. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: So this was the stage name by the way of
Speaker 1: Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfield. But she
Speaker 1: she had some pretty darn strong opinions on on I
Speaker 1: make up, where she basically was like, hey, some of
Speaker 1: you can pull this off, some of you can't. Don't
Speaker 1: even try. When talking about fair skinned and fair haired women,
Speaker 1: you know, think of your friends who have very light
Speaker 1: eyelashes or eyebrows, and they might want to emphasize them
Speaker 1: so that you know they don't maybe don't look as pale.
Speaker 1: She warned them against participating in this whole eye makeup thing.
Speaker 1: She said, but take this fair creature and draw a
Speaker 1: black line over her softly tinkshirt eyes, staining their beamy
Speaker 1: fringes with a somber hue, and how frightfully you have
Speaker 1: mutilated nature. She was very in favor. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, there are these women. They already have dark
Speaker 1: hair and dark lashes. That's fine, they can roll with it.
Speaker 1: But you fair haired ladies, you stay away from that
Speaker 1: burnt cork. Well. She also had a tip for keeping
Speaker 1: your lashes long and strong, which, yeah, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense and it's terrible in your mother, whoever told
Speaker 1: you the story, would not approve you. Just trim them.
Speaker 1: Get some tiny scissors and trim those eyeball whiskers. She said,
Speaker 1: it is within the power of almost every lady to
Speaker 1: have long and strong eyelashes by simply chipping with scissors
Speaker 1: the points of hair once in five or six weeks,
Speaker 1: which actually today if you use latisse you do have
Speaker 1: to do. Because they grow so long and so strong
Speaker 1: they will bad cure glasses if you wear them, so
Speaker 1: you have to trim them very carefully. To me, that
Speaker 1: that feels creepy, like if my lashes were so long,
Speaker 1: I feel like I would be distracted. Oh, I wouldn't mind.
Speaker 1: I love long lashes. Well, somebody else who love long
Speaker 1: lashes was Mabel Mabel Williams in nineteen fifteen. She inspired
Speaker 1: her brother tom Lyle Williams, who later started the company Maybel,
Speaker 1: which was named after his sister. Inspired by Mabel's use
Speaker 1: of a burnt cork and vasoline to darken her eyes,
Speaker 1: a trick she stole from Photoplay magazine, who stole it
Speaker 1: from ancient history. Uh. He ended up developing a mail
Speaker 1: order formula for cake mascara, although at the time it
Speaker 1: wasn't called mascara yet. All of this stuff was still
Speaker 1: being just called eyelash darkener. So this original Mabelne mascara,
Speaker 1: which like you said, was not being called mascara yet,
Speaker 1: it looked world of like a compacted blush or eyeshadow
Speaker 1: as you would see it today. And the way you
Speaker 1: would apply this eyelash darkener was by taking the wand
Speaker 1: that it came with. You would wet the wand and
Speaker 1: then run it over the cake mascara and then wanted
Speaker 1: over your eyes. Which is funny because I feel like
Speaker 1: there are a lot of modern day beauty tips where
Speaker 1: they say, hey, take this cake of eyeshadow and wet
Speaker 1: your brush and you can get a fabulous dark line
Speaker 1: on your eyes and that's like ladies. They were already
Speaker 1: doing that in Age of Gals. What's old is new.
Speaker 1: But by nineteen sixty six Maybeling, that little company started
Speaker 1: by Tom Williams, was earning more than twenty five million
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Yeah. And by the way, it was
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three that we started calling it mascara
Speaker 1: instead of eyelash darkener. But when it comes to false lashes,
Speaker 1: which are having a huge moment right now, uh, it
Speaker 1: was in nineteen fifteen that the first fake eyelashes, the
Speaker 1: first falsees were developed at the order of film director
Speaker 1: David Griffith, who was working on this film called Intolerance
Speaker 1: Loves Struggle Through the Ages, And obviously it's nineteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: It is a silent film, and he wanted his lead actress,
Speaker 1: Sena Owen to have lashes long enough that they would
Speaker 1: brush her cheeks when she would blink. So she needed
Speaker 1: really long lashes, so he got a wig maker to
Speaker 1: glue tiny strips of hair to her eyelids. But at
Speaker 1: that point it was still just a Hollywood magic trick.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until the nineteen forties that false eyelashes became
Speaker 1: available to the public. Yeah, and then of course they
Speaker 1: had a huge reignition of popularity in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: with all that strong, dark, thick eye makeup. And I
Speaker 1: mean I wear him every Halloween. I can't say that
Speaker 1: I like rock fake lashes any other time time. Well,
Speaker 1: that might be good because all that glue near yr
Speaker 1: New year gentle lashes. I don't want to rip out
Speaker 1: any of my eyelid whiskers, that's right, because they take
Speaker 1: seven weeks to grow back. Um. But if we go
Speaker 1: back though to the nineteen thirties, there were some bumps
Speaker 1: along the road in our development of mascara and false lashes,
Speaker 1: because this was this was sort of the downside to
Speaker 1: our long standing obsession with darkening these hairs on our eyelids.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen thirties, women were getting maimed and blinded,
Speaker 1: and one even died from using this product called lash
Speaker 1: Lure eyelash and brow dye because it contained highly toxic
Speaker 1: substance that would tinden the hair but also cause irritation
Speaker 1: and ulcers. And so with that, eyelashed dies were banned
Speaker 1: in several states. Yeah, it's around this time that we
Speaker 1: get the Food and Drug Act and the f D
Speaker 1: A and the Federal Trade Comission actually have to start
Speaker 1: approve being claims and advertising and things like that, because
Speaker 1: you don't really want ulcers that blind you. Yeah, if you,
Speaker 1: I'm just warning you. You can google image lash lore
Speaker 1: eyelash to see what it did to some of these women.
Speaker 1: But I'm warning you that's it's not pretty. No. And
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties and forties we start to see
Speaker 1: the development of eyelash curlers. The first one was actually
Speaker 1: curl lash that's a K that is with a K,
Speaker 1: and that was not a product of the Kardashian family
Speaker 1: empire K for cookie. Uh. Yes, So we get eyelash
Speaker 1: curlers and waterproof mass scara that was developed. I think
Speaker 1: there was one Austrian actress that patented a version of
Speaker 1: waterproof mascara. Yeah, and apparently because a lot of these
Speaker 1: cosmetics come out of film and stage acting. And I
Speaker 1: think it was the Austrian actress who're talking about was
Speaker 1: a stage stage actress who needed a mascara that could
Speaker 1: withstand her sweating under stage lights. But a lot of
Speaker 1: the early waterproof mascara's would stay on, but they also
Speaker 1: contained an adhesive so that after the actresses were done.
Speaker 1: If they left it on too long, their eyelets would
Speaker 1: get kind of stuck together, So it took some time
Speaker 1: to develop what a freaking nightmare Um. In nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: Revlon launched their mascara in a tube with a spiral
Speaker 1: wand and this was there were a couple other people
Speaker 1: doing it at the same time. I don't think it
Speaker 1: was just Revlon Um, but they ended up following it
Speaker 1: up in nineteen sixty one with the first colored mascara, which,
Speaker 1: you know, all these things have obviously retained popularity. I
Speaker 1: just saw some magazine like another recommendation for Um colored mascara,
Speaker 1: which I used as a kid too, not a kid,
Speaker 1: like a surly teenager. But anyway, in nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: maybe Lene, it's still around launches. It's insanely popular Great
Speaker 1: Lash mascara, which sally uses my mother, and by two
Speaker 1: thousand two, one tube of Great Lash mascara was selling
Speaker 1: every one point five seconds. And what continues to fascinate
Speaker 1: me when it comes to mascara is how it seems
Speaker 1: like any time you see a commercial for mascara, they've
Speaker 1: come out with some kind of new innovation, like they're
Speaker 1: constantly improving and improving and improving on these mascaras, which
Speaker 1: obviously dubious marketing claims, but it just speaks to what
Speaker 1: a massive market force, like our demand for mascara that
Speaker 1: will perfectly elongate our lashes and make them look full
Speaker 1: and not get clumpy and do all of these things.
Speaker 1: How how huge of a force that is. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the guys who works in the cosmetics industry who
Speaker 1: was in one of these articles that we read, was
Speaker 1: talking about how even people in the industry were taken
Speaker 1: by surprise at the length that women were willing to
Speaker 1: go to achieve this ideal lash and that included like
Speaker 1: doing like a hundreds ropes of mascara on each eye
Speaker 1: and they end up coming out with they're like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: there's obviously a demand. That's not a problem. We just
Speaker 1: need to put some products in front of these women
Speaker 1: that they'll go for, and that includes things like the
Speaker 1: vibrating uh mascara one. Yeah, so you know how they
Speaker 1: tell you when you put on mascara to sort of
Speaker 1: wiggle the wand back and forth and drag it up. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: this thing if you're hardcore enough about your makeup, and
Speaker 1: he specifies that he said, this is obviously not for
Speaker 1: your average woman putting mascara on in the morning before
Speaker 1: she dashes out the door to work. This is for
Speaker 1: somebody who is hardcore and to makeup, and it's definitely
Speaker 1: going to spend a lot of time getting ready, and
Speaker 1: so the wand vibrates as you put on the mass era.
Speaker 1: Could you just use an old electric toothbrush? Get your
Speaker 1: get your nineties cake, I Darkenner, Yeah, what's your what's
Speaker 1: your electric trooth? What your electric toothbrush? Put it in there.
Speaker 1: Than I think it's perfect. We're onto something. We are
Speaker 1: on something, probably very dangerous um And I mean I've
Speaker 1: also found myself standing in the drug store cosmetic aisle
Speaker 1: just staring at mascara's How do you how do you pick?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, how many conversations have you
Speaker 1: had with other women about their preferred mascara? Are the
Speaker 1: ones that they swear by? But then you use and
Speaker 1: you're like, but this, no, this isn't doing what I need.
Speaker 1: And then in I feel like every single edition of
Speaker 1: every single mainstream women's magazine, there is at least one
Speaker 1: feature on some new mascara that you have to try. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't. I've been burned before, Kristen.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean literally like with lash floor. I
Speaker 1: mean that I will see some mascara that's been really
Speaker 1: hyped up, and I don't want to pick on any
Speaker 1: brands or whatever, but I'll see something's been like super
Speaker 1: hyped up across magazines and I'll say, well, God, if
Speaker 1: it's so great, I'll give it a shot. And then
Speaker 1: I've been severely disappointed because either it's completely under my
Speaker 1: eyes by the end of the day or I can't
Speaker 1: get it off even though it's not waterproof except etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So I have found a brand that I have used
Speaker 1: since high school and even the same type, like subtype
Speaker 1: of mascara in that brand, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: give it up because it's too scary out there in
Speaker 1: the mascara world. There's any choices well, and it's so
Speaker 1: easy for us as consumers to make those choices because
Speaker 1: like things like uh, YouTube a lipstick, well now polish,
Speaker 1: it's one of those small luxury items that we we
Speaker 1: don't mind parting with it just a few dollars just
Speaker 1: to just to try it out. Although some can get
Speaker 1: quite expensive, but it's genius. I mean it's it's honestly
Speaker 1: a genius product because it constantly keeps women guessing and
Speaker 1: spending usually insignificant enough sums of money that will just
Speaker 1: continue doing it. Well. That's like with lipstick. You know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about the lipstick index on the podcast before
Speaker 1: about like during the recession and during times of of
Speaker 1: economic downturn. You know, everybody's trying to save money and
Speaker 1: they're down on their luck, but you're still going to
Speaker 1: go to the store pick up a lipstick or in
Speaker 1: this case, a mascara because it's a way to to
Speaker 1: make yourself feel pretty. And I feel like you're still
Speaker 1: participating in a beauty ritual, but not spend a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars like you might on a fancy haircut. But if
Speaker 1: you want to spend not just a hundred, but hundreds
Speaker 1: of dollars on your eyelashes these days, you certainly can
Speaker 1: by getting eyelash extensions, which started in Japan and then
Speaker 1: started getting really popular in the States in two thousand five.
Speaker 1: And you go there. There are actual eyelash beauty bars
Speaker 1: that you can go to these days where for a
Speaker 1: few hundred dollars or maybe more. You can lay down
Speaker 1: for an hour or two and have someone hand stitch
Speaker 1: eyelashes fake eyelashes into your real eyelashes. Yeah, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: There were two different articles that we looked at, uh
Speaker 1: where women gave a first person account of trying this
Speaker 1: out and how. One woman gave a hilarious account of
Speaker 1: like who in her life ranked them and who in
Speaker 1: her life noticed at first and her boyfriend. She said
Speaker 1: like something like her boyfriend rolled over and was just
Speaker 1: going looks like your face. Another woman was called out
Speaker 1: at her son's soccer game for having incredibly long lashes,
Speaker 1: and the other woman assumed she'd done like a walk
Speaker 1: of shame or something because it looked like she was
Speaker 1: still wearing so much makeup. Yeah, but I can't say
Speaker 1: that I would do that. There's something that's scary. I
Speaker 1: don't have that much disposable income. A. But B I'm
Speaker 1: scared about adhesives on my eyelashes. Yeah, it seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty daunting procedure to go through just for lashes
Speaker 1: because the only last for a few weeks max um.
Speaker 1: But if you want something that lasts a bit longer
Speaker 1: and also have more disposable income to spend. There's always Latise,
Speaker 1: which hit the market in two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 1: I remember first seeing ads for Latisse and laughing about
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it seemed like, was like, Oh, really, are
Speaker 1: we really being sold longer lashes? Come on, this is
Speaker 1: gonna tank? No, I was. I was so wrong with
Speaker 1: Caroline rep shields doesn't lie clear, James? Oh yeah, clear, Dames?
Speaker 1: Does it too? Um? Yeah, this is It's a glaucoma
Speaker 1: drug that they found had the incredible side effect of
Speaker 1: making lashes longer. But like christ And said earlier, you
Speaker 1: definitely got a trim those babies or else they will
Speaker 1: just keep growing and and bringing us up today, like
Speaker 1: concluding our timeline, basically, the mascara industry is nothing to
Speaker 1: sniff at. An international serve in two thousand two found
Speaker 1: that women worldwide are using mascarat, Mabelin remaining the best
Speaker 1: selling brand, and it's the mascara market itself, just by itself,
Speaker 1: is a four point one billion dollar industry, and I
Speaker 1: have a feeling that that number is even bigger today
Speaker 1: because that was reported on in two thousand nine, So
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that the number continues to up
Speaker 1: and up and up, and you will see trend pieces
Speaker 1: pop up every now and then about how guys are
Speaker 1: also getting in on the eyelash game. There's actually something
Speaker 1: called brand eye Lure that makes false eyelashes specifically for guys,
Speaker 1: which are designed to be subtle and give guys what
Speaker 1: they call a Hollywood gaze, So so the male gaze. Yeah, yeah, Well, Caroline,
Speaker 1: we've gone through the history of mascara and we've talked
Speaker 1: about how we've done it forever, but that still doesn't
Speaker 1: answer the question of why we pay so much attention
Speaker 1: to these puppies, because it has to be more than
Speaker 1: just tradition. There has to be something behind this idea
Speaker 1: that bolder, more voluminous, longer, more lush eyelashes will make
Speaker 1: us more attractive. It's definitely related to the Kammas suitor
Speaker 1: recommending it oh spicy, and we'll get into that spiciness
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break. So
Speaker 1: there's this book called Love Signals, A Practical Field Guide
Speaker 1: to the Body Language of Courtship by David Givens and
Speaker 1: Grain of Salt just Grain of Salt. But Givens claims
Speaker 1: that we spend so much time on our lashes because
Speaker 1: it's all about sex signaling. It's about sex, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he talks about a good old rapid eye blink or
Speaker 1: eyelash flutter means that you've raised the blinkers level of
Speaker 1: psychological arousal. And so he says that batting the eyelashes
Speaker 1: is a familiar flirting cue seen around the world, and
Speaker 1: wearing mascara or artificial lashes embellishes that, Hey, I find
Speaker 1: you sexy. Blink see I I find though, anecdotally, that
Speaker 1: whenever I catch myself blinking rapidly, it's because I'm startled
Speaker 1: and shocked by something some wires crossed. The Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that makes me fun on a date. And so by
Speaker 1: extension of that, Gibbons says, of course women wear mascara
Speaker 1: or artificial lashes to embellish the blink. But even though
Speaker 1: we think of sort of in a trophy kind of
Speaker 1: way of batting your eyelashes as being a very feminine queue,
Speaker 1: it's a signal that we are trying to catch your
Speaker 1: attention or curry favor. Studies show, according to Gibbons, that
Speaker 1: both sexes blink faster with partners they like. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: pay attention. I don't. I'm gonna now start tracking my
Speaker 1: eye blinking when I'm on a date with my boyfriend. Well,
Speaker 1: Givens actually recommends that people do that. Oh, pay attention
Speaker 1: to your blinkingly Yeah, like not well, not your own,
Speaker 1: but your dates, like not counting them because you'd be
Speaker 1: like I want to, but but sitting there and maybe
Speaker 1: talk about maybe if they're looking away, see how often
Speaker 1: they're blinking, if they're looking at the way it or something.
Speaker 1: But then when they look back at you, if all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they're blinking a lot, take note because
Speaker 1: body language cues again grain of salt um. But he
Speaker 1: also talks in his book about how and this is
Speaker 1: getting away from eyelashes, but in general, he talks about
Speaker 1: how people tend to find moving faces more attractive, like
Speaker 1: facial movements and facial expressions make you more attractive in
Speaker 1: the eye of the beholder. And so he says that
Speaker 1: it's basically seeing big spider eyelashes. Blinking and moving uh
Speaker 1: is part of prioritizing movement the visual system prioritizing movement
Speaker 1: on the face, and that fluttering your long lashes can
Speaker 1: catch and keep eye contact well. And there's also when
Speaker 1: it comes to how we often use mascara to darken
Speaker 1: our lashes. That does tend to make the whites of
Speaker 1: our eyes look brighter. So there are theories that we
Speaker 1: use mascara stone much. We were so into darkening our
Speaker 1: lashes because by whitening the whites of our eyes it
Speaker 1: makes us look healthier. And Margot Demelo, who wrote Faces
Speaker 1: around the World, a cultural encyclopedia of the human face,
Speaker 1: says that eyelashes, just eyelashes themselves, are considered a sign
Speaker 1: of femininity also because they make the eyes look larger.
Speaker 1: And this gets into evolutionary theories about how men straight
Speaker 1: men are attracted to almost baby face looking women, not
Speaker 1: because of infantilizing purposes, but because there's this idea that
Speaker 1: babies evolved their super baby cuteness to specifically to keep
Speaker 1: fathers invested in them for the long term, and so
Speaker 1: over time that translated to their attraction to their female mates.
Speaker 1: And bigger eyelashes make it looks like you have bigger eyes,
Speaker 1: which makes you look sort of younger, healthier. I look
Speaker 1: really young. My eyes are super wide, haroline s eyes
Speaker 1: are huge, and I'm scared. No, I I definitely like
Speaker 1: all of this stuff resonates in my brain because on mornings,
Speaker 1: especially like this morning, I was super tired and I'm
Speaker 1: just I find myself putting on a ton more mascara
Speaker 1: when I feel like I look tired or feel tired,
Speaker 1: because I just I almost want the mascara to just
Speaker 1: lift lift my eyes open and keep them open, give
Speaker 1: me baby eyeballs. That's all we need. And I also
Speaker 1: wonder too if by enhancing our eyes and making them
Speaker 1: look larger, sort of creating this optical illusion around our
Speaker 1: own eyes is one example two of what's called a
Speaker 1: super normal stimulus, which you hear a lot about when
Speaker 1: it comes to why women look sexy in high heels,
Speaker 1: because it creates what's called a super normal stimulus, sort
Speaker 1: of an exaggerated signal in the case of high heels,
Speaker 1: of making our hips shift and making our butts bounce
Speaker 1: a little bit, which is already a signal of youth, fertility, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So mascara might be creating one of those supernormal stimuli
Speaker 1: in our eyeball region as well. So there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of evolutionary theories behind why we do it, although I
Speaker 1: wonder yet again, you know, evolution. Why why couldn't Why
Speaker 1: couldn't you have made health in fertility as strong of
Speaker 1: the signal for men just so that they had to
Speaker 1: wear all this stuff too. They did in Egypt. But
Speaker 1: I think I wonder if that's more though, that it
Speaker 1: was that hot, dry climate, that it was more of
Speaker 1: the enhancing the utilitarian functions of mascara to keep stuff
Speaker 1: out of our eyes, to deflect the sun's rays. Could be,
Speaker 1: I mean, but it is interesting, just like total side
Speaker 1: note that this practice does go back so long, forever
Speaker 1: people have been doing this, and you do have rocker guys,
Speaker 1: you know those rocker tips, some goth dips, one of
Speaker 1: my ex boyfriends, one of Caroline's six boyfriends, who will
Speaker 1: rock some guyliner and some mascara from time to time.
Speaker 1: And hey guys, I mean Johnny Depp in Pirates of
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. Yeah, alright, messy, handsome, sloppy, handsome. Um, but
Speaker 1: eyelashes are definitely tied into gender cues. Uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could just ask any child reading a comic book.
Speaker 1: My dad used to joke when I was growing up
Speaker 1: and had goldfish. He used to joke about, like, well,
Speaker 1: how can you tell which fish is the girl fish,
Speaker 1: she has eyelashes. Um, but no, that's a thing. That's
Speaker 1: really a thing. Um. There are plenty of comic book
Speaker 1: and comic strip examples, including characters like Mini Mouse versus
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse or Petunia the Pig versus Porky, who were like,
Speaker 1: here is a woman creature that has eyelashes, because you can't,
Speaker 1: and especially in a children's cartoon like Disney or something,
Speaker 1: it's not like you can put bodacious breasts on a
Speaker 1: duck or whatever and have it be normal for kids.
Speaker 1: So they had to emphasize some sort of like secondary,
Speaker 1: non threatening sex characteristic. Yeah, and that was something that
Speaker 1: Trina Robbins wrote about over in Image and Narrative. And
Speaker 1: I wonder sort of based off that, if Barbie wasn't
Speaker 1: so curvaceous and had such prominent boobs, if maybe she
Speaker 1: would have had more prominent eyelashes, because she doesn't have.
Speaker 1: I mean, your eyes don't blink. But I'm just saying
Speaker 1: this is a total side theory. I'm now starting to
Speaker 1: think way too much about eyelashes. But I hadn't realized before.
Speaker 1: I hadn't put that to the two and two together
Speaker 1: in terms of oh long eyelashes gender q for you know,
Speaker 1: these cartoons that cannot be voluptuous because when things like
Speaker 1: many Mouse and and all of these characters are first
Speaker 1: being drawn early on in the twentieth century, it's you know,
Speaker 1: women in our culture had been darkening their eyes forever.
Speaker 1: And so it's obviously not that if Mickey Mouse were
Speaker 1: a real boy, he wouldn't have eyelashes, because boys have eyelashes,
Speaker 1: but you do. The cartoonists had to find a way
Speaker 1: to indicate, to give that gender cue two children to know, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a girl mouse, and kids do pick up
Speaker 1: on those gender cues, even down to the eyelashes from
Speaker 1: a very young age. Arizona State University psychologist Carol Martin
Speaker 1: actually noticed this effect of gender schema on her four
Speaker 1: year old niece because she she observed that when her
Speaker 1: niece drew stick figures, the women had eyelashes, but the
Speaker 1: men didn't. Well again, I mean, if they're stick figures
Speaker 1: and you're a kid, and you're like, I know, you
Speaker 1: look like a person, but I don't know how to
Speaker 1: translate you looking like that to my piece of paper.
Speaker 1: I can just draw sticks. It's like, I I need
Speaker 1: you to know that this is a woman person eyelashes,
Speaker 1: give her some eyelashes. And considering all that we've now
Speaker 1: talked about, Caroline, it seems like the trajectory of our
Speaker 1: concern over our eyelashes has only gone up and up
Speaker 1: and up and up. It's never dropped off at any
Speaker 1: point to the so today we have these expensive false eyelashes,
Speaker 1: you know, treatments that we can go get them sewn
Speaker 1: into our faces, or we can get all these high
Speaker 1: end mascara's. Um it's never really dropped off to where
Speaker 1: today there's Latisse, there's the eyelash extensions that you can
Speaker 1: get hands sewn into your eyelashes. They're all sorts of
Speaker 1: mascara's out there. And there are false slashes, which are
Speaker 1: so huge right now. I was actually in a cosmetic
Speaker 1: store this past weekend and took a while just staring
Speaker 1: at all of the different varieties of the false flashes.
Speaker 1: But speaking of false slashes, before we close out this podcast,
Speaker 1: real talk for a minute, we need to address the
Speaker 1: fact that those false flashes are being often made by
Speaker 1: women who are being paid just next to nothing, absolutely nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Guardian did an article on this, looking at women
Speaker 1: in Indonesia in particular because that's where the huge industry
Speaker 1: is and the factories are. Um that pointed out that,
Speaker 1: for instance, with the brand eye Lures Katie Perry range
Speaker 1: of false eyelashes, the women who are making those in
Speaker 1: Indonesia start on about fifty pounds a month, whereas the
Speaker 1: lashes sell for just under six pounds in in the UK.
Speaker 1: And there are a ton of cosmetics and fashion names
Speaker 1: that have factories in Perba Lingo, which is in Central Java, Indonesia,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these companies gravitate towards this region
Speaker 1: because of the very low legal minimum wage, and these
Speaker 1: women just aren't making any money. And I keep saying
Speaker 1: these women because about the workers and these factories making
Speaker 1: our false eyelashes that I go by on how queen
Speaker 1: them are women? Well, and the fact too that you
Speaker 1: have all sorts of cosmetic companies that are in per Bolinga,
Speaker 1: including brands like Loreale, mac Makeup Forever and Mabelin it's
Speaker 1: probably not just the false flashes that are being made
Speaker 1: for you know, next to nothing. And the women working
Speaker 1: in these factories, going back to the false eyelashes will
Speaker 1: make as little as seven cents for every pair that
Speaker 1: they make but women working from home will make them
Speaker 1: who make them will make about two cents prepare. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if we need to do a follow up
Speaker 1: episode on this talking about how our cosmetics industry here
Speaker 1: affects how that affects the women who are actually making
Speaker 1: these cosmetics and probably not going out to buy the
Speaker 1: newest mask era, the newest lipstick and get their nails
Speaker 1: done and ever have false eyelashes stone into their eyes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is certainly something that makes sense because
Speaker 1: but I have never really thought about when I go
Speaker 1: pick up a pair every year for Halloween of false
Speaker 1: eyelashes where they come from. I just think, oh, it's
Speaker 1: just the factory. It cranks them out somewhere in New
Speaker 1: Jersey or something that the eyelash factory. Obvious little lash factory.
Speaker 1: I'll go there. Hopefully it's not as creepy as the
Speaker 1: chocolate factory. Who really wank up? But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's something to think about as we as we celebrate
Speaker 1: and examine our our eyelash habits. Yeah, and and also
Speaker 1: like consider how far we have gone this is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a global industry. It's massive, and there are people
Speaker 1: on both ends of it. Both on the production side
Speaker 1: and on the side that we're talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of going and consuming it. So with that, we want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. We want to hear all of
Speaker 1: your eyelashy thoughts. Are you like Caroline and me and
Speaker 1: have spent a lot of time considering your mascara and eyelashes?
Speaker 1: Let us know mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com
Speaker 1: And if there are any eyelash conscious guys out there,
Speaker 1: I specifically want to hear from you, because what do
Speaker 1: you do if you're a guy? Do you can you
Speaker 1: get away with wearing mascara to make them look longer?
Speaker 1: Do you even care? I just want to know. Mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuffwork dot com is our email address.
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook, and we have a couple of messages
Speaker 1: to share with you right now. So we've got a
Speaker 1: couple of letters here from some guy listeners about our
Speaker 1: episode on modesty. Joshua writes, I'm one of your newer
Speaker 1: listeners and I binge listened to you and the rest
Speaker 1: of How Stuff Works while I'm at work, and right
Speaker 1: now I'm listening to your modesty episode and wanted to
Speaker 1: share my thoughts as the father of two young boys,
Speaker 1: it is important I feel that women be taught to
Speaker 1: dress for the environment they're in, and dressing modestly is
Speaker 1: also important. However, it's also the responsibility of young men
Speaker 1: to treat women with respect, no matter what they're wearing. Locally,
Speaker 1: there's been a kerfuffle about what young ladies wear in
Speaker 1: schools and the double standards in terms of what the
Speaker 1: different genders can wear. Two things would help alleviate the
Speaker 1: issue surrounding dress codes and how young men and lesbian
Speaker 1: young women are quote distracted by their classmates. One. Education,
Speaker 1: it's important that young people understand what is happening to
Speaker 1: them as they grow up and begin to notice potential partners.
Speaker 1: This way, they can be shown what appropriate behavior is.
Speaker 1: To change the dress code of high school to reflect
Speaker 1: a business casual atmosphere. This will instill a sense of
Speaker 1: appropriateness for when your young people get into the real world. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'm in the modest hottest camp, which may have something
Speaker 1: to do with my Protestant upbringing. I intend to show
Speaker 1: my boys that a woman is beautiful no matter how
Speaker 1: she dresses, and that she should be treated as a
Speaker 1: person who is no less or greater than they are.
Speaker 1: So thanks Joshua, and thanks for raising your boys upright. Well.
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Peter also about our
Speaker 1: modesty episode. Um he says, h. I think when a
Speaker 1: lot of men weigh in on this subject, they don't
Speaker 1: have a clear understanding of how random and indiscriminate male
Speaker 1: gaze and harassment can be. I'm assist gendered man who
Speaker 1: presents himself in a very feminine way. I have long hair,
Speaker 1: and by both men and women's clothing. I don't often
Speaker 1: get much of a hassle for it, but one experience
Speaker 1: sticks out of my mind. About a year ago, I
Speaker 1: was walking home from class on a rainy day when
Speaker 1: a man float his car next to me and, assuming
Speaker 1: I was female, began cat calling me. He offered me
Speaker 1: a ride, He repeatedly asked for my number, asked if
Speaker 1: I had a boyfriend. If you're male, this is something
Speaker 1: you are never taught how to deal with. You hear
Speaker 1: stories about cat calling and harassment, but you never understand
Speaker 1: how invasive it is until you experienced at firsthand. I
Speaker 1: couldn't even process what was going on. I get mis
Speaker 1: gendered by cashiers on an almost weekly basis, but this
Speaker 1: was another level of upsetting. He followed me for about
Speaker 1: a block before I finally got the nerve to tell
Speaker 1: him off properly. I spent the rest of the week
Speaker 1: obsessing over it, wondering what I did wrong? Was it
Speaker 1: something I was wearing? Was it the way I walked?
Speaker 1: After I got my thoughts together and consulted female friends
Speaker 1: about what happened, their response was a unanimous no. He
Speaker 1: just thought you were a girl. That is why you
Speaker 1: were cat called. They proceeded to share their stories with
Speaker 1: me of the workplace, in the classroom. It was happening
Speaker 1: to them every single day. I could barely take it
Speaker 1: after it happened once, so to all of the other
Speaker 1: men in the audience. If a woman in your life
Speaker 1: tells you about how someone harassed or please don't make
Speaker 1: it about modesty. Until you've walked a day in a
Speaker 1: woman's shoes or in my case, a woman's pants, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're going to understand quite how complicated and
Speaker 1: personal this topic gets. No matter what you look like
Speaker 1: or what you're wearing. If some jerk thanks you're a woman,
Speaker 1: they're probably going to think is totally okay to invade
Speaker 1: your privacy and to make advances on you. Thank you
Speaker 1: for another excellent podcast, and here's hoping my terrible experience
Speaker 1: can be put to good use. So thank you so much, Peter, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us via
Speaker 1: social you can find all of our links to that
Speaker 1: stuff as well as all of our blogs, dios, and podcasts,
Speaker 1: which also include all of our sources so you can
Speaker 1: follow along with us. All that's over at stuff mom
Speaker 1: Never Told You dot com for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Doesn't have stuff works dot com