14 DAY TRIAL // Three years of intensive research have paid off, as cosmetics giant L’Oreal is currently preparing to release a new product on the international market, a serum that, if successful, will literally make mascara redundant. Said product is believed to be based on recent medical findings and to lead to longer and thicker eyelashes by prolonging the amount of time of growth of individual lashes, as The Telegraph can confirm.
Since long, luscious lashes have always been held as a sign of beauty and grace, researchers at the L’Oreal laboratories in Paris started thinking about ways to make them longer and thicker. They began by analyzing the growth of lashes and bodily hair, and noticed that, while head hair could grow up to three years, a lash’s life cycle was limited to only three months.
This means that individual lashes grow for three months and then fall, which means their length can be influenced by prolonging the amount of growing time. In doing so, the number of lashes on the lid is also increased, which, in turn, translates into longer and thicker lashes without mascara.
Based on these findings, L’Oreal developed a serum that would be sold over the counter for the lengthening of eyelashes and that literally aimed at replacing traditional mascara from women’s makeup bags. “Modern mascaras create the illusion of longer eyelashes. When women take their make-up off, their lashes are still the same length. Eyelashes are similar to other hair in many ways, but they have two key differences that we can exploit [the speed of growth and the amount of hair growing at any one time].” Dr. Patricia Pineau, scientific director at L’Oreal, says for The Telegraph.
“In head hair, 70 to 80 per cent of the hairs are growing at any one time while in eyelashes only about 15 per cent are growing. It was clear by increasing the duration of the growing phase the eyelashes would grow longer while postponing the start of the resting phase, when the lashes fall out, means there are more lashes on the eyelid fringe.” Pineau adds.
The serum is to be applied on a nightly basis for a period of three months: trials so far indicate that most women report an increase in length by 20 percent and in density of up to 30 percent. The secret ingredient is, it seems, “an amino acid known as arginine, and extracts from a Mexican plant known as Centella asiatica,” as The Telegraph explains. No release date for the serum has yet been announced.