LiLash Spider Lashes

One of my favorite parts of travelling is walking into boutiques and discovering new designers, or coming upon a new product. And that is exactly what happened yesterday in my stroll through Japan Town, San Francisco. While Debbie waxed my brows and tried to talk me into warming them up with a little gloss, I couldn’t help but notice her long spider leg like eyelashes.

“You have the most beautiful long eyelashes.” I told her, trying not to sound like I was picking her up. And then another woman walked out from behind a curtain with the same long, we are talking 1.5 inch long, thick lashes.

“Are you two related? I’ve never seen such long lashes in my life.”

They giggled and told me they both had been using LiLash, an eyelash stimulator, for the last four months. LiLash was developed out of glaucoma eyedrops that had a side effect of stimulating eyelash growth. Scientists were able to isolate the chemicals causing hair growth and bottle it up in a little liquid eye liner length bottle. You brush it on the lid of your eye and after a few months you have these spider leg lashes that actually require trimming! Trimming!! Can you imagine??

The only catch is that a bottle of the eyelash miracle work costs $140. Why so much? I’m guessing when the patent wears off, cheaper knock-offs will emerge and every cosmetic company will be adding the ingredients to their lengthening mascaras.

So here is the Econ breakdown. Supply for eyelash stimulator is currently low and the demand high. An elastic demand means they can charge whatever they want! But when the price goes down and cheap knock-offs flood the market, everyone can buy it and everyone can have long eyelashes and suddenly it will be more special to have them natural. So perhaps I should stay ahead of the curve and keep my $140.