For someone old enough to feel out of the loop about trends among Gen Z, yet still young enough to understand the culture of internet trolls, the videos can be difficult to judge. Over the past few months, posts on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram from barbers’ accounts – which usually promote their skills in carving out the perfect beard trim or coiffure – have gone viral for showing them trimming male patrons’ eyelashes. Most show the barber bringing small electric razor across their closed eyes, with the ends falling under the patron’s lower eyelid. In one particularly hair-raising hair-razing clip, the barber uses a pair of scissors, showing off their surgical precision, and maybe the generosity of their accident insurance as well.
The videos are apparently genuine, coming from the accounts of real barber shops, whose profiles include more conventional pictures and videos of well-sculpted fades. One video caption states that the client asked for the trim in order to “look more masculine.” There is a twisted logic to be followed here, where one could understand how the fact that highlighting eyelashes is generally associated with a feminine look, ergo, getting rid of them necessarily moves one farther down the opposite end of the spectrum.
Lost in this concern is a sense of masculinity secure enough to not fret one way or the other over one’s eyelashes, as well as the danger that cutting them poses to the eye itself. “Beauty trends aside, per the American Academy of Ophthalmology, eyelashes have an important job—they keep dust, dirt and other substances out of your eyes,” the organization’s clinical spokesperson, Dr. Usiwoma Abugo, told the beauty magazine NewBeauty, adding that cutting lashes could “compromise their protection of your eye, and risk infection or even injury.” Dr. Abugo goes on to confirm that bringing scissors close to the eye is not a good idea either.
NewBeauty’s report also highlights less obvious benefits from eyelashes, citing research from the journal Computers in Biology and Medicine which found that eyelashes “reduce ultraviolet light received by the cornea of about 12–14%.” Excessive exposure to UV light has been linked to photokeratitis, a condition akin to a sunburn on one’s cornea and conjunctiva.
While one could view the videos as pointing to a broader trend, there’s a chance that this is still much ado about nothing. The videos are few and far between, only originating from a couple of accounts, and could logically be going viral because of how strange the practice is perceived to be by social media users. The comments sections of these videos indicate an overall confusion at the practice, with most asking some variation of “why?” and a seldom few noting that the look will make the person look like they’re wearing eyeliner, although it is difficult to discern if this is meant as a defense of the practice or simply a statement of fact.
In the caption mentioning the client’s desire to “look more masculine,” the poster asks viewers “Would you try this??” implying that the request was unusual. Indeed, the barber who posted that video told Buzzfeed that they had only ever been asked for that one time, and a poll of his clients on Instagram found that 98% of them would not try it.
