One of the Worst Beauty Trends Ever?
Do as I say, not as I do. That’s been on my lips a lot lately; especially since I’ve been taking a trip down memory lane with all the zany beauty trends I’ve indulged in. Most were harmless; at least in the physical sense (my ego on the other hand…that’s a different story.) Some are far worse; I am embarrassed to even admit I was so foolish but it needs to be addressed because, to my horror, this is still going on. Wearing non-prescription color contacts for “fun” has got to be right up there with mouth tattoos and dermal implants as crazy risky; I seriously thought this was over but I realized there’s still a huge market for this and it needs to stop. Here’s my story…when I was 13 a huge trend hit my school where girls and guys decided it would be super awesome to wear black market color contacts as a beauty statement. There are several things wrong with this idea namely:
- We didn’t have credit cards to shop online so we had this $5 a piece item brought over by friends, aunts, cousins, best friend’s Godmother’s son etc. from Mexico, actually Tijuana to be exact so I’ll just let that sink in for a second.
- Now that I’m a fully thinking adult I realize A. they were most likely obtained illegally or B. substandard knock-offs created in unregulated factories.
- The reason ophthalmologists exist is because contacts are for corrective purposes and only a select number of people with legitimate eye issues should be wearing contacts. In true idiotic form we were essentially getting the roulette wheel of vision correction-astigmatism? Hard/Soft contacts? Bifocals? Who knew? We just wanted blue or green eyes if it meant going blind.
- Since these weren’t actually prescribed by a physician we knew nothing about proper cleaning, care, maintenance, signs of infection etc. We were playing with fire and were blissfully unware.
- I won’t go into this too much because I don’t want to knock down my glass house with stones but seriously who were we fooling? None of us were WASPS yet we totally thought icy blue eyes looked totally au natural.
My stupidity didn’t last long as I found them a pain to get in and they felt like sandpaper after about an hour of wear, so I got away fairly unscathed. When I saw them still for sale in Asia and ready to be shipped to consumers in the US I got a little sad. I mean, if I had an actual Rx for contacts I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t see what my “options “were but since my vision is fine I should do all I can to keep it that way.
