Woman Wears Mascara To Bed For 25 Years, Now Has Eye Complications

Aug 16, 2018

We’re all guilty of it. We come home late from work or a night out and are too tired to take our makeup off before we go to sleep. Maybe it comes off in the morning when you’re rested, but you’d never sleep in your makeup every single night. But this isn’t the case for some people.

A 50-year-old Australian woman had to undergo a procedure due to the damaging effects that sleeping with mascara on every single night for 25 years had done to her eyes.

What you’re about to learn will probably cause you to diligently wipe your makeup off every single night before bed. The woman, named Theresa Lynch, decided it was time to go to the doctor after having the constant feeling that something was lingering in her eyes. Lynch then admitted that she had gone 25 years without adequate removal of her excessive use of mascara.

Doctors and staff were shocked at what they found. Her case was so interesting that it even ended up in the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Years of mascara had built up so bad on her eyes that they caused her to develop calcified lumps beneath her eyelids. This was the cause of the lingering sensation that something was stuck in her eye.

Although it was visible to the naked eye, the buildup was pretty deep into the subconjunctival layer of the eye. They were also embedded into the conductiva area. Lynch had also developed follicular conjunctivitis, which is an infection caused by bacteria in the follicles of your conjunctiva.

The conjunctiva is a membrane composed of mucus that protects the eye against infections by covering the eyelid. Each time that Lynch was closing her eyes, she was scratching her cornea with the lumps. All of the issues that the doctors discovered caused scarring that is permanent to not only Lynch’s eyeball but her cornea as well.

The procedure to remove the lumps from her eyelids took 90 minutes. They were embedded so deep into her eye that it was causing her severe discomfort and the doctors were shocked. Lynch even remembers her eyelids were swollen and heavy from the lumps. Her eyes had developed a bloodshot appearance from never having a rest from mascara.

Although Lynch has learned a lesson from her bad habit of keeping her makeup on at night, she wants to warn others to not make the same mistake. Many mascaras and other makeup products contain things that are toxic for our eyes, so it’s important to use them sparingly and wash off when we’re done. 

Will you make sure to wash your makeup off properly every night after reading Lynch’s story? Let us know what you think in the comments!