Directly before and for a week after my LASIK surgery, I was not allowed to wear make up.
Actually that’s not true: For two days before my surgery I could not wear liquid eyeliner or mascara. Some women need no mascara to make their eyelashes stand out, but for someone with blonde eyelashes, lack of mascara is like having no eyelashes at all. I knew there would be a period of no make up surrounding my surgery, but I was nevertheless mildly horrified when I found out I had to go without my mascara for two whole days beforehand.
It was one of my most repeated questions in the aftermath of post-op appointments: “When can I start wearing makeup again doctor?”
Overall, I am OK with wearing no make up. Unless I have somewhere to go I don’t wear it on the weekends and I don’t have a problem with people seeing me without it. In fact, I actually went through a period where I didn’t wear any make up at all. Therefore in some ways I found the absence of make up in the days following my surgery refreshing.
However, the thing that sent me running back to the mascara in the end was when a friend of mine said, “I wondered why you’d been looking so pale lately,” when I told her the doctor finally said I could wear make up again.