Actually, we love what this bizarre beauty trend does to make eyes look enormous and pretty, but at what cost?
The trend has been popular for several months now, and has generated even more major buzz with Lady Gaga's new 'Bad Romance' music video. And her wide-eyed look there, might have been computer-enhanced, rather than the result of wearing circle contact lenses. (See Gaga photo).
The trend did not originate here. Wearing circle contacts is popular in Japanese anime and in high schools across South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. Circle lenses are unique, in that they make the eyes appear bigger because they cover not just the iris, as regular contact lenses do, but also part of the whites.
Teenage girls and college students have been able to easily buy a batch of these colored circle contacts all over the internet illegally, for about $20-$30 a pair. This has eye experts seeing red, so to speak. And popular YouTube videos are showing up everywhere with demos on how to put these circle contacts in. Makeup artist Michelle Phan has a super how-to get the doll-like Lady Gaga look. Click here. By the way, Michelle's YouTube video has had more than 9.6 million views.
Here in the United States, it is illegal to sell contact lenses without a prescription, and no major maker of contact lenses in the U.S., at the moment, is selling circle contact lenses. Doctors fear, that girls are buying lenses that have not been fitted properly, and risk eye infection, along with damaged corneas.
Are you going goo-goo over Gaga's bizarre beauty trend?? If so, please be very careful where you buy these circle contact lenses. We're not sure the doll-like look is worth the risk of injury, infection, or in some cases, blindness.