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All of a flutter: how eyelashes became beauty’s biggest business

The eyelash business is worth $1.66bn – and is predicted to grow from there. Why are we so obsessed with our lashes? Eva Wiseman reports on their history and significance

And, too, politics – in the same recent news cycle, pictures of a grandly lashed 54-year-old Melania Trump sat alongside those of a 25-year-old protester arrested in Clacton-on-Sea for throwing a milkshake over Nigel Farage while wearing Russian Volume extensions. The way these kinds of false lashes are thought of in mainstream culture, says Betts, “communicates something about the gatekeeping at play in social relations where the symbolic economy of taste is still employed to manage boundaries.” She adds, however, “I think this is much more about the legacy of the continuing patriarchal system, whereby women’s value remains connected to their appearance and, of course, this is underpinned and informed by capitalist economics, which encourages us to consume in one way or another – in this case as a way to improve, embellish, decorate – as whatever we do is never enough.” I realise, on my way home, I’m willing to put conflicted thoughts about feminism, beauty standards and internalised ageism aside for a little while for the chance to wake up already in a mild state of glamour, to enter the world every day with a sense of flirtatious drama.

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