Are they crazy?

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Are they crazy?

By S.K. Bardwell
Posted Monday, June 1, 2009

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I’ve thought for years mascara manufacturers were unstable. Or at least, that their marketing people were unstable.

Now I’m sure.

The reason I’ve thought that for years is, every televised or printed mascara ad I’ve ever seen has featured a model wearing false eyelashes.

We’re not talking discreet false eyelashes here – we’re talking obviously, patently, fantastically false eyelashes. The kind that look as though the model has been attacked by wooly-worms that may be eating her eyeballs. The kind that cause a strong breeze and a flapping noise whenever the model blinks.

If the model can blink. There’s no reason to believe she can.

A few years ago, a couple of mascara companies got in trouble for their advertising pictures and claims (in Britain, not here, where our national motto is, “We’ll buy anything”). But the ads haven’t changed.

Evidently they get away with it by never coming right out and saying, “Your lashes will look like this if you use our mascara.” Instead they say their mascara is “designed to” make your lashes look like that, or “uses advanced (lipid/plastics/space/industrial pipefitting/fill in the blank) technology to” make your lashes look bigger, longer and – well, like the fake ones in their photo.

One of the companies that got into trouble in the U.K. insisted model Kate Moss was not wearing false eyelashes in their advertisements. When pressed they admitted, yeah, OK, her lashes were enhanced after the photo was taken.

I doubt if the mascara companies really think their customers are stupid – I think it’s more likely that they started out advertising their mascara on models with fake lashes in the fifties, and no one wants to be the first to stop. They’re afraid potential customers will look at their model and say, “That mascara model isn’t wearing fake lashes – that mascara must not be as good as the mascaras on the models with fake lashes.”

OK, so maybe they do think we’re stupid.

Someday, some cutting-edge mascara company’s going to take out ads in magazines and on TV showing their product on real eyelashes and making outrageous claims like, “It does everything a mascara can do - makes your lashes darker and maybe a tiny bit longer and thicker.”

The industry will reel. It will never be the same. But the people making false eyelashes will finally be able to come out of the closet and advertise their wares “for women who want eyelashes like those fake ones in the old mascara ads.”

Anyway, what convinced me finally to make public my fears that mascara makers and advertisers might be unhinged is the e-mail I received recently from Maybelline, touting the first-ever vibrating mascara.

I’m not making this up.

Due to my exalted status as someone whose e-mail address Maybelline has, I can buy “Pulse Perfection by Define-A-Lash® Vibrating Mascara” online now, before it’s available in stores.

“It’s our first vibrating mascara,” the ad burbles. “Transforms your lashes to perfection.” Uses a “patent-pending elastomer brush (that) vibrates 7,000 times per stroke.”

Dear God, I whisper to myself. Do they want me blind?

Maybelline’s may be the first-ever vibrating mascara, but the innovation is founded on a long tradition of women trying to put on mascara while being jostled by three other large people who are trying to get ready for work and school, and by women trying to apply mascara in moving vehicles.

And by women like me who suffer a nervous affliction that causes their hands to tremble when they’re holding sharp, bristled sticks near their eyeballs.

I gave up wearing mascara years go, because even if I managed to apply it without gouging my own eyes, a day spent largely outside in a Houston summer made me look like I was the drummer for Kiss.

Still, I read on through the Maybelline e-mail in horrified fascination. The instructions for “Pulse Perfection by Define-A-Lash® Vibrating Mascara” read, in part: “Step 2: Press the button to activate pulsation. Release the button to stop. Step 3: While pressing the button, place brush at base of lashes and move slowly towards lash tip.”

When I heard about a new, vibrating shaving razor, I thought it was a very bad idea, and mentally put it on my list of “really sharp, jiggling things I should never attempt to use.” This tops it.

And the icing on the cake? The model shown sporting the first-ever vibrating mascara is wearing false eyelashes. Take a look.

What’s next? Vibrating tweezers? Vibrating sewing-needles? How about vibrating pens and pencils? Vibrating eyeglasses, to add interest to your driving experience. Vibrating books, for a really exciting read.

Me, I’m waiting for the vibrating knitting needles. I can’t wait to see how much easier it is to brutally stab myself with one of those – doing it with the old, manual knitting needles is a real chore.