Lynda Wharton Naturopath Acupuncturist Writer

Living in a house with two teenage daughters means I’m constantly monitoring the excesses of modern “beauty”… it usually goes something like this…. “go and wash your face before you leave the house, there’s no way you’re going out looking like that!”.

Now, courtesy of Allergan, we have a new designer drug that could make mascara excess a thing of the past. Why then, am I not jumping for joy at the prospect of an end to the teenage mascara wars? Because, we’re talking a drug… a powerful drug, with side effects (some of them still not know), to grow a thick, luxurious crop of eyelashes. I say, give me the mascara any day.

Allergans drug, Latisse was originally formulated to be a treatment for the eye disease glaucoma. The fact that it causes a thick crop of eyelash hair was observed simply as a side effect to begin with. Allergan quickly twigged to the fact that this side effect could itself allow marketing which could see Latisse stowed in every makeup bag alongside the lip gloss and blusher. With the gorgeous Brook Shields as front person, Latisse has quickly attracted teens and 20 something’s as its biggest fans, despite its $120 a month price tag.

There is no doubt that Latisse works, and very quickly you or your teenage daughter can become the proud new owners of a set of lashes to turn daisy the cow green with envy. Trouble is, all the other stuff that comes along with the lashes to die for. How about hair growing in strange places on your cheeks; or ingrown eyelashes; or eyelashes growing to weird lengths? What about permanently darkened, browned eye lids, or weirder still, how about changing your beautiful blue or green eyes to a permanent shade of brown?
Yes, Latisse actually causes eye colour to change.

Then there’s the “per orbital fat atrophy”. That just means that the fat around your eye sockets simply disappears, giving you a very caved in, or carved out appearance around your eyes. But wait, there’s more…. Lattise can make your eyes red and irritated, cause inflammation (uveitis); swelling of the macular; cataracts and vision problems.

While all of these “side effects” are potentially problematic, the most concerning of all may be the effect of changing eye colour to brown. The truth is that the long term ramifications of this are completely unknown. The pigment granules in the eye that are changed by Latisse, are involved in the routing of the optic nerves, as well as the protection of the eye from free radical damage, protein breakdown.

In common with many other pharmaceutical drugs on the market, Lattise will be purchased and used (long term) by young women who themselves will become the guinea pigs used to discover the long term consequences and side effects of the drug.

So for me and mine, it looks like the mascara wars are here to stay, and Latisse will not be coming to live in a make up bag anywhere near this house.

To your good health

Lynda Wharton
www.lyndawharton.com