How long do eyelashes take to grow back?

March 11, 2006 10:01 AM

How long do eyelashes take to grow back?

I used a friend's eyelash curler last night, and they somehow managed to chop a 0.75 cm gap of my eyelashes off. The lash stubs are about 0.25 cm long, right in the middle of a line of normal lashes.

I can't wear mascara without drawing attention to the freakish gap in my eyelashes now. Somehow, I have a feeling that eyelashes grow veeeeeeerrrrryyyyyyy slowly.

Anyone have any idea how long it will take for my poor eyelashes to grow back?

posted by sayitwithpie to health (6 comments total)

The hair on the arms, legs, eyelashes, and eyebrows have a very short active growth phase of about 30-45 days explaining why they are so much shorter than scalp hair.
posted by furtive at 10:12 AM on March 11, 2006

I've heard that eyelashes get replaced about every two weeks, so it shouldn't be too, too long. But, they also apparently take four months to grow completely- so maybe considering you didn't pull them out completely, you'll have to wait sometime between two weeks and four (!) months. You could try modestly-sized fake eyelashes in the meantime though.
posted by Oobidaius at 10:13 AM on March 11, 2006

Four to eight weeks.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:14 AM on March 11, 2006

A relative has trichotillomania, (compulsive hair-pulling, frequently of the eyelashes and eyebrows) and states that six weeks is about right for eyelashes, and they'll start to look normal after four. Oddly enough, eyebrows take much longer to look normal when starting from scratch.
posted by Ryvar at 11:08 AM on March 11, 2006

meanwhile, you might be able to use false eyelashes. You could just use enough to make it less noticeable.
posted by theora55 at 3:45 PM on March 11, 2006

I did the same thing. I used eyeliner to fill the gap until my eyelashes grew back, which didn't take very long and nobody seemed to notice or they were too polite to comment.
posted by Tarrama at 7:22 PM on March 11, 2006