DBritt asks…I am 50 and have used Lancome mascara for about 20 years without complication. 5 yrs ago, I switched to Arbonne and had no issues until about a year ago. I started getting a pimple like thing in my lower lashes every now and then. This morphed into an occasional stye type sore near the corner of my eye in my upper lashes. Now, my eye(s) will turn red and bother me plus the lash area is itchy and sore. The only thing that helps is going without mascara over the weekend or longer. Is there any product out there which is truly hypo-allergenic? It Are these symptoms consistent with an allergic reaction to mascara?

The Right Brain responds:

Well, DBritt, we have good news and bad news for you.

Stye science

First the good news: From what we’ve been able to glean from various sources, styes are not caused by any kind of allergic reaction. So there’s not need to mount a quest for the Holy Grail of  hypoallergenic mascaras. Rather, styes are caused by bacterial infections.  The follicle which grows the eyelash hair can become infected and the resulting puss-related swelling creates a stye.  Exposure to stye-inducing bacteria can come from rubbing your eye or from contaminated eye makeup, especially mascara.  To protect yourself, you should, as Lindygirl was quick to point out in our Forum ”change mascara at least every 3 months or it can get bacteria in it.”

Now the bad news: We could find no advice for the kind of recurrent styes that you’ve described. If you’re already diligent about changing your mascara (and assuming you’re not causing reinfection by rubbing your eyes) then perhaps you have a different condition. Here are three other possible causes of eye bumps:

Types of eye bumps

• Xanthelasma: raised yellow patches that tend to happen with ages and can be a sign of  high cholesterol.
• Papillomas: Pinkish bumps that are mostly harmless unless they interfere with your vision.
• Cysts: tiny fluid-filled sacs on your eyelids.

Reference: Womenfitness.net

You should probably see a doctor to make sure that what you spy is really a stye. And check out WebMD for a good discussion of styes, chalazia, blepharitis, and internal hordeolums (which sound much nastier than they are.)

The Beauty Brains bottom line

Styes are not caused by allergic reaction to mascaras but bacterial contamination can be a problem. Change your mascara often and check with a doctor if the problem doesn’t go away.

Have YOU ever had a stye caused by eye make up? Leave a comment and share your experience with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.

Kathie Lee’s question… I’ve been using Maybelline clear mascara to add shape and definition to my brows but my friend tells me I should be using a brow gel.  Is there was any difference between clear mascara that’s specifically designated for your lashes and clear eye brow gel?

The Right Brain responds:

They way we look at it, clear mascara and eye brow gel are pretty much the same thing.

How does eye brow gel work?

First of all, clear mascara is different than regular mascara. Regular mascara is wax based and is designed to thicken and color your lashes. Maybelline Clear Lash, on the other hand, consists of base of water and alcohol, thickened with a chemical called Carbomer, and a film forming agent called PVA (Polyvinyl alcohol) that gives your lashes some stiffness. This product is more like a hair gel than it is a mascara.

Now consider an eye brow gel like “Paula Dorf Perfect Eyes Brow Gel” or Eyebrowz Clear Eyebrow Gel. We’ll use the EyeBrowz product as an example because it doesn’t have a silly name like “Dorf.” The Eyebrowz formula is also water based and is thickened with Carbomer. But it doesn’t contain alcohol and it uses PVP as a film former instead of PVA. (That’s not a big difference.)

These formulas use pretty much the same ingredients so they should have a similar feel. (Without testing we can’t tell if one formula uses a higher level of the film formers so we can’t say for sure.) There’s no technical reason why you couldn’t use clear mascara on your eyebrows, but it really comes down to your personal taste. Why don’t you test it for yourself: use one product on one eye and the other product on the other. Write back and let The Beauty Brains know how the experiment works out!

Do you want to learn more about which beauty products really work? Download our FREE guide.

Liz loves lovely eyes so she asks… How do waterproof mascaras work?

The Right Brain’s Raccoon Eyed Response:
Before we talk about waterproof mascara, go read our description of how mascaras work so you understand the basics.

Did you read it?

Come on, did you REALLY read it?

OK, that’s better.

Wet or wild?

It’s easy to make a product like a mascara or a hairspray that is completely waterproof – you formulate it with ingredients that aren’t soluble in water and you leave out the detergent type ingredients that make it water washable. The problem with this kind of formula is that it would be really hard to wash off. The trick to making mascaras waterproof is to balance the oil and water soluble ingredients in the formula to give good resistance to water without making it too hard to remove.

It’s tough to tell from looking at the ingredient list how well the product will walk that fine line, but in general you can look for formulas that DON’T list water as the first ingredient. This isn’t a sure-fire way to tell, but it might help.

Looking at some of the products on the market, we heard good things about Revlon’s Lash Fantasy (which sounds like the title of a romance novel). It’s a two step process that supposedly gives great waterproofness (is that really a word?).

The Beauty Brains bottom line

Waterproof mascaras work by balancing oil and water soluble ingredients to coat your eyelashes with a waxy coating that resists smudging but still washes away completely.

Do YOU have any favorite waterproof products? Leave a comment and share with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.

Thanks to everyone who read my last review on the Schick Quattro razor! Although I got a good tongue lashing from Lefty for posting a review, I was encouraged by the outpouring of support from many of the Beauty Brains community. So here’s another quicky glimpse inside my bathroom cabinet.

Warning: Do not read this if semi-banal product reviews turn you off. There’s another post on the page you can read instead. I promise it won’t hurt my feelings.

Maybelline Lash Stilletto Mascara

I love this product, especially the cutesy packaging. (It’s shaped like a high heel and, surprisingly, it stands up very nicely on my dressing table.) I like the way it distributes evenly when I put it on. It splits my lashes really uniformly – some mascaras make the middle lashes look one way and the lashes on the outside look differently. This one is very consistent. I think the secret is the applicator. It seems to take a very small amount of product to do the job. The wand looks like it hardly has anything on it at all.

But by far the best feature is how it thickens and lengthens without out clumping. With so many mascaras I’ve tried  that’s the trade off – I can get thickness but at the cost of a clumpy look. This one gives me the best of both worlds, and I adore it for that.

The only thing I didn’t care for is the slight base odor of the product. I can actually smell it for about 10 minutes or so after I put it on and that bugs me. But once that wears off, it’s just fine.

Does your mascara force you to make compromises? Leave a comment and share your gripes with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.

Beauty Bug is bugged: The Beauty Bug got into a mascara conversation with the Store Director of Sephora who said that all/most drug store formulations contained tar which makes your lashes fall out. Is this true?

The Left Brain responds:

We love these stories about how salon/specialty store products like Blinc and Darphin use safer chemicals than mass market products. If you compare the ingredients you’ll see that many of these brands use similar, if not identical, ingredients.

So how did this rumor about tar in mascara get started? It could be because “coal tar” dyes have been used in permanent hair colors. But these chemicals are not approved for mascara.

So you can rest assured that Revlon, Covergirl and the other drug store brands do not contain tar that will make your lashes fall out. Thinks about it – MILLIONS of women use these products. If they did make your lashes fall out, our cities would be filled with bald-eyed women!

By the way, if you’re interested in learning more, read our post on how mascara works.