Ghost Lashes

Lashes are often portrayed as long and dark and glossy and bold. If our faces are stages and our eyes, the stars, then lashes are supposed to be velvet curtains that hang down with reverence and encourage standing ovations. They’re expected to spread like a stretching cat’s paw and extend upwards like giraffe necks toward the sky. It’s the only time we embrace spiders.

In order to achieve the effect of black lacquered fans, we coat our home-grown strands with mascara — then try not to cry. Or, we pay someone to attach strands of fur — one by one by one — in order to add to the drama, to the length, to the flirt.

The last time we spoke about lashes I had just gotten extensions. I’d joined the Secret Society of Falsies and was a woman with a microphone who’d been transformed. In the comments, a few of you asked if it caused my lashes to fall out. (No more than my usual rubbing fits do.) And a few of you asked if I experienced post-extension withdrawal. (Yes, yes, a thousand times yes and I probably won’t feel like a full babe until I get them again.)

Then a few of you pointed out something interesting: if you’re blonde or fair skinned or have red hair or are Tilda Swinton, your lashes are so far from makeup’s manufactured black that you feel to add falsies or ink appears harsh.

One of you dubbed the look, “Ghost Lashes.”

And that is exactly what we’re here to celebrate today.

Let us bask in the beauty of the lash that prefers snow to mascara. Where some women feel naked without it, ghost lashes challenge makeup-as-clothing and ask, “Since when is nudity a bad thing?” These baby powder blinkers eschew dye in the name going commando. You’d never see a fairy wearing pants, would you?

Hell no.

Ghost lashes tell beautiful lies of spending days outdoors on surfboards in the sun. They’re tall tales of Nordic princess lineage, of ice queens and moon child cousins. They could be dyed or amplified or have the volume cranked, sure. Everyone likes to play dress up once in a while. But when your lashes have that ethereal edge, why would you ever want to come back to planet earth?

So here’s to all the women with sky-bleached eye fringe. Your lashes are truly out of this world.