Eyelash Enhancers

Katherine Harris jokes aside, women have always spent a lot of time on their eyelashes. But lately, the little things have been getting a new burst of fashion attention, with salons offering a host of mascara-free treatments ranging from eyelash extensions to tinting and perms.

Especially hot are extensions, in which a dozen or so individual hairs are glued onto the lash line and worn for a few weeks. "The effect is very subtle," says makeup artist Laura Mercier, who spruced up Sarah Jessica Parker for the Golden Globe Awards. "It's not like putting on a strip of fake eyelashes the way people did in the '70s." Celebrities such as Naomi Campbell and Molly Shannon are flocking to Manhattan's J. Sisters International, where a 45-minute procedure--which the salon says is imported from the beach glamour of Brazil--costs $55. Demand for the treatment has jumped from a handful of extensions a week in 1999 to 30 a day.

Eyelash perms have been around longer, but they too are growing in popularity at places like the Ella Bache Spa in New York City. There, $65 will get you tinting and a perm that involves gluing lashes to a cotton roll and exposing them to curling chemicals for 20 minutes. But be careful; safety questions remain about some of these procedures. The Food and Drug Administration has not approved any permanent dyes for the eye area, and some states outlaw them.