I’m a plastic surgeon & an eyelash serum made my eye bulge & led me to need surgery – beware, it can age you too
LONGER lashes may have to wait as one plastic surgeon shared some serious issues that could arise with serums for lash growth.
The cosmetic professional said the beauty products left her with an issue that required going under-the-knife twice to correct.
Dr. Umbareen Mahmood, MD, a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon based in New York City recounted her experience in a viral video on TikTok.
She said she had been using lash serum to achieve the glamorous look of fuller lashes.
The product worked for her initially, even garnering compliments from strangers on the street.
However, it was during a photo op when Dr. Mahmood noticed something seriously wrong with her eyes.
“When I saw the photos afterward I was like, ‘what the hell happened to my eyes?'”
THE LASH SERUM
Dr. Mahmood said that she had been using Rodan + Fields Lash Serum leading up to the eye issue.
“One of my eyes was enormous and bulging out,” Dr. Mahmood said.
After lengthly sleuthing and going to doctors to get to the bottom of the issue, she learned that the lash serum had been the culprit.
The issue lies in prostaglandin — an ingredient found in many lash growth products on the market.
Prostaglandin can also weaken the muscles around the eye as well as diminish the fatty tissues — which can also cause an aged appearance.
Dr. Mahmood experienced this, causing her other eye to compensate by bulging out.
“In my cause, [prostaglandin analogs] caused muscle thinning of the muscle the holds the eye lid up,” she said.
The ordeal caused her to have two surgeries to correct the issue caused by the lash serums.
GROWING LASHES SAFELY
Dr. Mahmood did come with a safer solution for longer lashes — castor oil.
“Now, I’m not saying run out to Whole Foods, buy castor oil, and put it all over your eyelashes,” she said.
“But I’m just saying, if you’re going to use eyelash serum please, please, please be very careful.”
Dr. Mahmood also provided more advice for lash serums.
“This video was intended to share my personal experience with a beauty product, an eyelash growth serum,” Dr. Mahmood told The U.S. Sun.
“Many medications for glaucoma and other ocular diseases contain prostaglandins.
“But the risk-benefit ratio of using these vision preserving medications is obviously dramatically different than the risk-benefit ration for a cosmetic product to lengthen lashes.
“Additionally, while to my knowledge there are no scientific studies definitively confirming the ability of castor oil to grow lashes, there are studies demonstrating its effectiveness in conditioning lashes and preventing breakage/loss.
“I received thousands of questions about which lash serum is safe and the short answer is, there isn’t a “perfect” product.
“There are certainly serums on the market that do not contain prostaglandins, but people can have reactions to anything, including castor oil.
“So it’s impossible to say which ingredient in which product may cause an adverse reaction for any particular individual.”
The U.S. sun reached out to Rodan + Fields for comment.