4 hours ago
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Name: Stubby lashes.
Age: Genetically? Ancient. Done deliberately? New.
Appearance: Dead tough.
Unattractively short eyelashes? I’m finally in vogue! Steady on, hotshot. Are your eyelashes naturally short?
Unfortunately, yes. Then I’m afraid it doesn’t count. If you want true stubby lashes, you have to have them shaved off by a hairdresser.
With an electric razor? That’s right. A loud and terrifying electric razor, held millimetres from your eyeball. Some people prefer scissors.
I don’t think this is for me. Then you’re missing out. All the cool kids are doing it.
All the cool kids? Well, technically all the extraordinarily fragile men who think minimal eyelashes make them look a lot more masculine – but let’s go with cool kids.
And this is actually happening? Oh yes. A TikTok video advocating the practice went viral recently, and now the trend has been reported everywhere from Turkey to New Zealand. It’s definitely a thing.
But aren’t eyelashes, you know, important? So important. They are filters that keep rainwater and debris out of your eyes, preventing irritation and infection. They also function as whiskers, alerting the eye when objects get too close, and triggering an involuntary blink.
So why shave them off? Because long eyelashes are perceived as “feminine”. And by that metric, we can also assume that eyeballs that aren’t permanently infected are also feminine.
But aren’t long eyelashes supposed to be attractive? Yes! There are even fan sites rhapsodising over Robert Pattinson’s “killer lashes”. Then again, one small study found that longer eyelashes were more attractive on women than on men.
So stubby lashes work for the people who do trim them, right? No! One Facebook user on a thread about the practice said: “It felt like I was going blind,” adding: “From experience if you shave them you’ll get a ton of eye boogers 0/10 do not recommend.”
So then … Look, I don’t know what to tell you. There’s a weird brand of ultra-masculine “looksmaxxing” at the moment, for vain men who want to optimise their sexual market value. And have you heard of mewing? It’s where you walk about with your tongue jammed to the roof of your mouth to give you a better jawline. There’s also chin surgery, Botox and tooth-whitening. Stubby lashes are just the next logical step.
I hate to point out the obvious, but … But by focusing on painful and expensive body-altering practices, these men are ultimately just falling into the same spiral of insecurity that women have worked for centuries to escape?
Yes, exactly that. So the real message is that shaved eyelashes might make you look more masculine, but getting them shaved is as feminine as you can get.
It must be so exhausting to be male. Honestly, you have no idea.
Do say: “Hot for spring/summer 2025: stubby lashes.”
Don’t say: “Also hot for spring/summer 2025: weeping blepharitis.”
