Lady Gaga-style contact lenses put your health at risk

YouTube beauty vlogger Michelle Phan's tutorial on how to achieve Lady Gaga's wide-eyed look from her Bad Romance video is Phan's most popular post to date with around ten million views.

But US media warn that the manga-inspired circle lenses, which are immensely popular in Japan and South Korea and were used in Phan's video, are illegal and potentially dangerous.

Even though Lady Gaga's now famous anime-style eyes from Bad Romance were actually computer-generated and not achieved with the help of such contact lenses, the star has helped to inspire a trend that is putting her fans at risk.

A trend, described by the New York Times, among others, has seen more and more teens outside Asia buying the imported 'circle lenses,' designed to make your eyes bigger and more 'childlike,' without knowing where they come from or how they could harm their eyes.

Eyecare specialists on TV programs by US channels such as CBS have warned that wearing non-approved, illegally imported lenses - which teens apparently buy on the Internet - can cause infections leading to blindness, corneal ulcers and abrasion, or vision impairment.

Contacts have increasingly served as style accessories rather than corrective means recently - think Christian Dior's branded lenses or vampire-esque lenses for Twilight-themed Halloween parties - and while they can be fun (or make you look good in your Facebook pictures), they should be treated seriously: buy you contacts only with a prescription from your eye doctor.

For more information on how to keep your eyes healthy despite wearing contact lenses, visit http://www.healthcentral.com/encyclopedia/408/346.html.