Latisse: What’s all the fuss about?

Believe me, I get it – as the average person watching the commercials of beautiful Brooke Shields flapping around her enviable eyelashes, you may say to yourself….“let’s be real…does this actually work, or is it just hype?” I am admittedly a person who doesn’t believe in anything they see on commercials, and I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about using Latisse after seeing the advertisements…especially with all the talk about change in eye color and hair growing in strange places. (Who would want their eye color to change?) However, because I am lucky enough to work here, and I had the opportunity to try Latisse, I fell in love. Not only that, I now know everything about it that one could never know from simply seeing the commercials. Therefore, I have set out to educate anyone willing to listen about what it really does, and what you should realistically expect when using this remarkable product.

One of the best things about Latisse is that it’s so customizable. You can use it as little or as often as you would like depending on how long you want your lashes to be, you can use it more often specifically on the outside corners of your lid to create a more doe-eyed sort of look, and we actually have heard both male and female patients comment that they have been using it on their eyebrows as well and are loving it. (note: Latisse was not tested for nor was it FDA approved for use on the eyebrows)

I also love it because virtually anyone is a good candidate. I’ve always had pretty okay lashes, but since using Latisse I have amazing lashes and I love the way they look. There are also plenty of women who have either never had long eyelashes, or who throughout the years have lost a lot of their previous length and volume. I have seen women come in with teeny tiny lashes barely visible to the naked eye, and after about 8 weeks I saw them with a much fuller lash and a lot more confidence as well. This is also a great product for women and men post-chemotherapy. Many people, Dr. Clinton included, never fully recover all of their lashes and brows after chemotherapy, and this is a really great way to help some of that hair grow back.

Does it change your eye color?

The “mother” product of Latisse is actually a pharmaceutical drug, Lumigen, which is used for Glaucoma patients. This product is of a much higher concentration, and it is dropped directly into the eye. Patients using Lumigen can experience some change in eye color (i.e. people with brown eyes may notice specks of yellow or gold appear in their iris), but this was never seen during the testing for Latisse.

Will I grow hair in weird places?

Not if you use the product correctly. Latisse comes with small applicators, so it’s hard to miss your target area, and you would have to continually put the solution in an unwanted area to create hair growth there.

Any other side effects?

There are patients who have experienced some irritation on their eyelids since using Latisse, i.e. itching and redness, and those patients have either chosen to return the product to us for a full refund or just power through it because they love the benefits of Latisse so much. It is also possible that the area where you apply Latisse could darken -- you apply it to your eyelid in the same place that you would apply eyeliner, so it was never something that scared me particularly, but it is important to know that a slight change in color is a possibility.

If I have done nothing else in this post, I hope to have at least made a few weary consumers feel more comfortable with the idea of Latisse and answered some of the most frequent questions we get here at the office. Now, if only Latisse could give me Brooke Shields’ awesome hair and incredible height…maybe next year.