Labels.  Companies use the labels on products to bring our attention to something about their product that may make them better or different from their competitor's products.  In the beauty industry, sometimes the labels are misleading and you think you are getting benefits that might not really be important.

 Let's take a look at three common labels placed on beauty brands and find out if they are truly important.

Cruelty-Free

This moniker is meant to indicate that no animal testing has been done on the product.  However, the FDA has not approved a legal definition of the label.  In practice, a brand could use this label whether it is true or not.  

Again, in practice, the label is usually used to indicate that the final product has not been tested on animals.  However, this does no...

Are your eyes so irritated that you can't wear your eye makeup?  My patients complain about this to me all the time.  Why is this happening?

If your eyes are red and watery, they may be sensitive to the makeup you're putting on your lids and lashes.  That makes it difficult to wear makeup day after day. 

Years of wearing and caring for your makeup improperly can lead you to this point in your life.   I want to be the first to reassure you though. This is not your fault.  You didn't know that placing your eyeliner inside the eyelashes was harming your eyes.  You don't know which ingredients in your makeup are toxic to your eyes.  No one taught you how to do this properly and the resources weren't available for you to learn it on your own.

The U.S. Beauty Industry

The beauty industry her...

Dry eyes have changed a lot during the pandemic. There are 3 things that have caused dry eye symptoms to worsen for patients who already have it.  Let's explore what has made dry eye worse during the COVID-19 pandemic and what we can do to counter it!

 #1) Masks

Everyone is wearing a mask for some part of the day.  You're breathing and some of this air is going up into your eyes.  All-day long, or as long as you have your mask on, the air is being directed upwards from your nose or mouth into your eyes.  A lot of my patients complain about their eyes feeling drier now than they had before.

In addition, we are avoiding touching our eyes and faces, so you may not be putting artificial tears into your eyes as often as you would like.  Especially, if you are out and about, you may not be u...

What Does It Mean to be CLEAN?

CLEAN makeup refers to a brand that is free of toxic ingredients.  Unfortunately, there are toxic ingredients hiding in some of our favorite makeup brands, which leave residues on our lids and lashes and lead to inflammation. 

These toxic ingredients are like anything else that you can think of being toxic, like eating food that is spoiled. If we eat toxic foods, our stomach would become inflamed and it would be toxic to our insides leading to inflammation, discomfort, and bloating.

What happens with toxic ingredients on the eyes?

When toxic ingredients come into contact with your eyes, they become red, swollen, watery, and irritated.  There are 26 ingredients, which are commonly found in makeup that need to be avoided on the eye.  You can download a lis...

Here in the United States, women love mascara.  We use it every day. In fact, studies show that women apply mascara nine times a week.  That's more than once a day.  And, it's the one makeup we just can't live without.  It's very important to us, but most of us don't know how to care for our mascara.  We don't know when to throw these little beauties out.

Why do I need to throw out my mascara tube?

This is not actually a question I get that often from my patients.  But, it's one that I should get, because not many of us women know the answer.  Mascara, just like a jug of milk or a loaf of bread, has a shelf life. There are preservatives in it to keep it fresh, but they only last so long.

Mascara is applied to our eyelashes, and then the wand is put right back into the tube.  We do thi...

After several months of some length of self-quarantine, we are all beginning to notice new things about ourselves.  This has been an interesting topic in many a Facebook post over the past few months.  

In the health care industry, we have found many different consequences of staying indoors and keeping away from others.  The country may have slowed the spread of COVID-19 with these measures, but other health dilemmas have come about.

In the eye care industry, we have noticed an increase in eyelid infections, namely styes.  A stye is an infection in the oil glands of the eyelid.   The lid becomes red, tender, and inflamed.   As the infection continues, it tends to concentrate in one round area which is red, raised, and tender to the touch.

There are two types of styes:

• External: ...

Many of my patients struggle with wearing I make up all day. They put on make up in the morning,  but it starts to run down their faces by afternoon. The problem is redness, irritation, and watering.  It's the ingredients in the eye makeup: mascara, eye shadow, and eyeliner that are irritating to the eyes. 

Did you know that women use an average of nine personal care products every day?  And, the beauty industry in the United States is highly unregulated. There has not been a new law past in the United States since 1938. As of today, there are only 11 ingredients banned from beauty products made in the United States. Whereas in Europe, there are over 1100 ingredients banned from their ingredient lists.

When I discuss changing makeup products with my patients, I am often met with resist...