Last year, we professed our love for the Surratt eyelash curler, claiming that it was better than mascara. (We still stand by that.) A lot of you said you were excited about one feature in particular on this new, cult-classic curler: its width. It turns out, many of us are enduring a tiny little pinch in order to achieve pretty, fluttery eyelashes — and that just isn’t right at all.
This is what Adele Bakhtiarova, a molecular-biologist-turned-entrepreneur, wants to solve. Her company, Voir Creations, came up with the perfect solution for eyelash-curling: a custom product to fit your individual eye shape, courtesy of fancy technology and 3-D printing.
“Custom-curler components are made using 3-D imagery of the face, obtained with a mobile app, so that the curling mechanism aligns at the roots of the lashes, making it possible to curl the hard-to-reach sections in the outer corners of the eyes,” Bakhtiarova explains. “The process works in three steps: You download the Voir app, and follow the instructions to take a series of pictures of your face. Then, the pictures are obtained and processed on our servers to create a 3-D model of your face and eye shape. Then, custom components are designed according to those measurements.”
But, it doesn't stop there: The new product has a “bars-free curling mechanism,” which effectively eliminates any pinching problems. She also created “low-profile parts,” which is a fancy way of saying the bendy part of the curler doesn’t rest on your face in a bothersome way. “The body will be made out of strong and shiny polycarbonate plastic, like on the iPhone 5,” Bakhtiarova adds. “The custom-shape parts will be made of stainless steel.”
Right now, Bakhtiarova is in the Kickstarter stage of her project, looking for $30,000 to get it off the ground. Once it does, you can get your very own unique curler for $25 — only about $5 more than a certain shiny, silver model that’s captured many hearts. You can pre-order your own — and upgrade your mascara game forever. The future is here, and it's looking very beautiful, indeed.
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