For female faces, long eyelashes are certainly more attractive than very short eyelashes (the least attractive being), but they are also somewhat more attractive than very long eyelashes. For male faces, however, very long eyelashes are the least attractive. Each subject was shown 11 images of the same face, identical except for the ratio between eyelashes and eye width, which varied in increments of. These were just a few of the reasons why long eyelashes make you look attractive and attract people's attention.
Similarly, the only facial difference between Robin Hood's incarnation at Disney and his female counterpart, Maid Marian, was, you guessed it, his black, fluttering eyelashes, and there's a multi-billion dollar industry based on the (strange) idea that when you add eyelashes to your car, you suddenly have a female car. The researchers, led by Farid Pazhoohi of the University of British Columbia in Canada, estimate that the optimal eyelash length for women is approximately one quarter to one third of the eye's width. There are many options when it comes to caring for eyelashes and accentuating them, such as eyelash serums, argan oil and even eyelash stretches and extensions. Some scientists believe that if eyelashes have any real function, it is to diffuse airflow that could threaten to dry out the eyeball, and that their length is generally determined in relation to the size of the eyeball itself and not to the gender of the mammal to which they belong.
An experiment published in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences suggests that the most attractive eyelash length is approximately one-third of the width of the eye. Interestingly, participants rated the most attractive eyelash length differently for men's and women's faces, suggesting the interference of a cultural gender norm. On the one hand, the presence of healthy eyelashes can be a sign of general health; several diseases, disorders and congenital conditions can cause eyelash loss (sometimes referred to as milfosis or madarosis). The data also shows that excessively long eyelashes are just as unpleasant as eyelashes that are too short, something scientists call the “inverted U function of eyelash attractiveness”.
My brother now has two small children adorned with eyelashes, and for what it's worth at press time, at least his eyelashes haven't met the same grim fate as their father's. Other scientists have found that eyelashes are particularly darkened, perhaps with eyelash enhancers such as mascara and eyeliner help emphasize the sclera (the white part of the eyes, whose brightness can indicate health and youth) and the limbal ring (the dark ring around the iris of the eye).
