EYELID TINTING

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 154, 28 December 1936, Page 11

EYELID TINTING

WARNING TO WOMEN

RISKS RUN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, November 28. Dr. H. C. Semon, physician to the | Dermatological Departments at the Royal Northern, Hampstead, and King George's Hospitals, writes in "The Lancet" warning women of the risk run by the indiscriminate use of certain types of cosmetics for tinting their eyelids and lashes. He says:— "Tinting of the eyelids, apart from Hinting of the lashes, is now adopted by increasing numbers of . women in all ranks of society. It is being fostered by the manufacture of appropriatelycoloured pigments and dyes of varying composition and cost. "There is nothing novel in the practice. Actresses are familiar with the stage effects afforded by judicious application of the right colour in the right place. So long' as it was confined to the 'professional' and the demand was relatively small, little or nothing occurred to draw medical attention to the ill-effects which might ensue." Dr. Semon explains that at one time only one or two "shades" were procurable and the preparation was relatively harmless. "The position now is different," he adds. "The beauty specialist, aided and stimulated by new methods in the production _of fine chemicals, vies with the Parisian dressmaker in issuing his fashion edicts, and, as all smart women know, you can match your eyelids not only to your complexion—itself a changing factor —but to suit the varying demands of light and shade, boudoir and ballroom, night and day." The chemist could provide only a limited range of colour from quite innocuous substances. This was where the mischief was born. Cases are cited of women suffering from eye trouble through using tints. A curious feature of the patients whose troubles are recorded is that in some instances they have been, using the same pigment for some ,years when a sudden sensitivity developed. It is stated that the use of absolutely pure colour "lakes" in a solution of mineral oil should give some guarantee of immunity from the risks of tinting the eyelids, but the popular use of aniline dyes, "no matter how treated or mordanted," is stated to present a risk which cannot be escaped.