IF you wear eyeliner on a certain part of your eye then you could end up with blocked oil glands, one expert has warned.
One TikTok doctor revealed that people who wear eyeliner on their waterline – the line of skin between the eyelashes and the eye could end up secreting a tooth-paste like substance from their lids.
Many people wear eyeliner in this spot as it's as close to drawing on your eye as you can get without actually lining your cornea – but long term use can be dangerous and leave you with severe dry eye.
Optometrist Dr Brittani Carver-Schemper posted a video on TikTok explaining why doctors don't recommend that you wear eye liner on your waterline.
She had been examining a patient and filmed what damage using the cosmetic can do.
"This patient has worn eyeliner on her waterline since she was a teenager.
"The reasons doctors do not recommend to wear eyeliner on the waterline is because there are specialised glands there that produce and excrete oil.
"The oil should be an olive oil texture but as you can see here it looks more like toothpaste.
"That means that there glands are obstructed and are not producing healthy tears."
She also highlighted that without fully functioning Meibomian Glands the eyes are unable to produce quality tears.
This in turn could lead to dry eye disease, she told BuzzFeed.
She added that the only way to avoid it was to not use pencil or liquid eyeliner on the waterline.
"It doesn't matter what kind of eyeliner it is, all of them can obstruct the oils glands and cause irreversible gland damage", she said.
Dry eye is a condition affecting around 20 per cent of people in the UK.
Dr Britanni explained that one way of detecting if the glands are blocked is to use a Occulus machine – this takes pictures of the eye and can reveal how blocked the glands have become.
If you're unsure if you have dry eye syndrome, one expert explained what the condition feels like.
Jonathon Bench, Director Professional Affairs International – Dry Eye & Ocular Health at Alcon, makers of Systane® COMPLETEsaid the condition is most simply described as a reduced amount of tears either through not producing enough or them evaporating too readily.
He added: "It is a common condition; however, it can often be misunderstood or confused with other eye related problems as they may have similar symptoms such as irritable, red, stinging and scratchy eyes.
"The good news is that the symptoms of dry eye can be managed, so long as you know what to look out for so you can correctly identify the cause.”
To prevent dry eye then, as Dr Brittani said, you should stop wearing eyeliner on your waterline.
You can also make small lifestyle changes such as cutting down on screen time and wearing sunglasses when outdoors to protect your eyes from windy and dry conditions
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