Researchers determine the ideal lash length

Long lashes may be beneficial when trying to accentuate the eyes, but if they extend too far from the lid, they could come with unwanted side effects.

The New York Times reports that researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently discovered a connection between eyelash length and how well eyes stay hydrated.

The ideal size for the fringes was determined to be 1/3 of the side-to-side measurement of the eye itself.

It's at that ratio that they do the best job at preventing moisture from evaporating as well as keeping both debris and wind from making contact with the surface.

Though it seems like longer lashes would provide even greater protection, it turned out that the opposite is actually true.

What they do is create a wind tunnel of sorts that delivers drying bursts directly to eyeballs, hastening the drying out of them.

In performing the study, the researchers measured theeyelashes of over 20 species of mammals.

Said the lead researcher, "We showed that they followed this pretty strict relationship; that is the lash is about one-third the width of the eye."

Determining the advantage that length provides was done by creating models of various eye width to lash length ratios and subjecting them to blasts of air.

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