8 Weird Facts About Eyelashes

Whether you just want to brush up your knowledge or impress clients with your understanding of the area you work in, here are some handy facts about eyelashes that you can use to demonstrate your knowledge as needed:

1. The average person loses one to five lashes daily

Some people will lose less, some will lose more. With a growth cycle of around 3 months – a much shorter cycle than the hair on your head – lashes will never grow as long as head hair! Remember, lashes grow in three periods: anagen (active growth period), catagen (transitional period) and telogen (resting period). Usually around 90% of lashes are in the active growth stage, growing around .16 millimeters per day. The hairs on your top lid are much fuller than your lower lashline. In fact, they're almost twice as full with about 200 to 300 lashes (your lower lid has around 100) and the middle lashes are generally longer than the sides.

2. Cutting lashes doesn’t make them grow longer

It’s an old wives tale that cutting your lashes makes them grow back longer – luckily, they will grow back if you have a client who has been busy with the scissors, it will probably just take around 5 months.

3. The longest eyelash on record belonged to a guy in the US

According to the Guinness Book of Records the longest eyelash ever recorded was 6.99cm (2.75 inches) long and belonged to Stuart Muller from Gainesville Florida. We bet we know some clients who would be jealous of those lashes (and so are we!)

4. Everyone has tiny mites living in their lashes

That might sound weird, but it’s perfectly safe – in fact, we need Demodex mites to remove dirt and debris from lash follicles. As we know, clogged lash follicles can lead to infection so they are definitely something to be thankful for.

5. They styled their lashes in Ancient Egypt
Eyelash tools dating back to 4000BC have been found, meaning that as well as lining their eyes they were also doing their lashes in Ancient Egypt. Modern mascara was created in 1913 in France and was made up of coal and Vaseline.

6. Only mammals have eyelashes
Which is of course, is why humans have eyelashes too! You won’t find any reptiles, birds or fish with eyelashes.

7. Eyelashes happen quicker than you might think
In an unborn child, eyelashes start to develop after 40-60 days of conception. Lashes can sometimes be seen on 3D scans much later on in pregnancy.

8. Natural lashes have only two ‘ingredients’
Eyelashes are made up of 97% keratin (a protein found in hair, skin, nails and natural silk) and 3% water.

So, now you know!