nazia du bois

Travelling across South East Asia researching beauty trends is certainly an eye-opener. A lot of the things commonly practised now in the quest for perfect beauty are things I wouldn’t even have been able to conceive of, to be honest. One of the most popular innovations of recent years are these ‘Big Eyes’ contact lenses, born, of course, like all the out-there beauty category innovations, in South Korea. These are large contact lenses with darkened rims, so that when you wear them, they ‘extend’ your iris outwards, and bigger irises give the impression that you’ve got bigger eyes. A simple idea, really, and given the runaway popularity of the lenses, a very lucrative one. Most of the girls I’ve spoken to, in either Thailand or Indonesia so far have professed to having tried at least one kind. An optician I interviewed yesterday said they were most popular in the hazelnut brown, and least popular in the light blue – those would be, he said, ‘too unrealistic’. Somehow I’m not convinced that realism is the ultimate goal.