We’ve all done it before. We come home late and are so exhausted we fall right to sleep without washing our makeup off. But eventually, we do.
And most of us don’t do this everytime we wear makeup.
Or at least most of us don’t. But that wasn’t the case for a 50-year-old Australian woman who had to undergo a procedure after sleeping with her mascara on every night for 25 years.
What you’re about to see may make you never fall asleep with makeup on ever again. Theresa Lynch decided to go to the doctor after having a constant sensation that something was stuck in her eye.
The doctors were taken aback by what they found when they examined her.
She even wound up in a case study published in the journal of American Academy of Opthalmology, Newsweek reports. Lynch admitted to 25 years of heavy mascara use with inadequate removal.”
The mascara had built up so bad that it calcified into lumps underneath her eyelids which was what gave her the sensation of feeling like something was stuck in her eye.
Because there was something stuck in her eye!
“The concretions got embedded in the conjunctiva and it went deeper into the subconjunctival layer, but you could still see it, sort of like a tattoo,” said Dr. Rebecca Taylor, clinical spokesperson for the AAO and an ophthalmologist in Nashville, told BuzzFeed.
“She basically had these rough things stuck on the underside of her upper eyelid so every time she closed her eyes it would scratch her eyeball, particularly the cornea.”
On top of all that mess, Lynch also had follicular conjunctivitis, it’s a bacterial infection of the follicles in the conjunctiva.
The conjunctiva is a mucous membrane that covers your eye and the inside of your eyelid to protect your eye against infection. These combined issues caused permanent scarring to Lynch’s eyelid and the surface of her cornea.
According to Daily Mail Australia, Lynch had to undergo a 90-minute procedure to remove the lumps under her eyelids.
“[The lumps] were embedded so deep that particles were building up on top of each other. I was so uncomfortable,” Lynch said.
Lynch said her doctor was shocked when she took a look at her eyes.
“My eyelids were swollen and heavy because I left it for so long. When Dr Robaei pulled my eyelid back, she said: ‘Oh my god.. In my whole career I have seen anything this.’ She could see the whites of my eyes were glassy and bloodshot,” Lynch said.
Lynch says she’s is definitely changing her makeup habits.
“I had fallen into a bad habit of wearing a lot of makeup and not washing it off. I should never have let it get this far,” she explained. “It’s so important to properly take your makeup off every single night. You can’t miss a single day.”
Lynch’s case is extremely rare and the first known of it’s kind.
“Mascara, like many cosmetics, contains a lot of components, many of which are potentially toxic: Carbon black or iron oxide pigment to darken lashes; a polymer to form a film that coats lashes; a preservative; and thickening waxes or oils such as lanolin, mineral oil, paraffin, petrolatum, castor oil, carnauba wax, and candelilla wax,” Professor John Dart, of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology told Newsweek.
He says sleeping with your makeup on for one night won’t be a big deal but that you should make a habit of washing it off before bed.
It’s also not a good idea to share your mascara.
If you’re one to leave your eye makeup on a lot then you should leave some makeup removal wipes by your bedside for easy removal.
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