If you’re planning on wearing coloured contact lenses to elevate your Halloween outfit this weekend, an expert has urged you to reconsider.
The disposable lenses, which are worn for purely cosmetic reasons and do not improve eyesight, come in a variety of colours and patterns, and can cost as little as £3 when ordered directly from Chinese retailers such as Temu or AliExpress.
But one optician told the Daily Mail that these lenses can be dangerous – and wearing them for just a few hours could leave you with an infection, eye damage or even permanent sight loss.
Tina Patel, from Feel Good Contacts, said: ‘These cheap lenses often bought online, can be risky if they aren’t purchased with a prescription or from a regulated seller.’
The danger is that these contact lenses may not fit properly, and people may not know how to put them in correctly or remove them safely.
She said: ‘Lenses that don’t fit properly can cause serious infections, scratches to the cornea and in extreme cases, could even cause blindness.
‘Wearing them incorrectly can trigger issues like corneal ulcers or infections, such as bacterial keratitis.’
Bacterial keratitis is a ‘very painful’ infection, which ‘can lead to permanent vision loss if left untreated’.
Coloured contact lenses look like a bit of fun – but an expert warns they can leave you blind
A top eye expert has warned ‘dodgy’ Halloween contact lenses could cause blindness
She added that people who don’t usually wear contact lenses can forget to take them out after a long night, or shower in them – both of which can lead to eye infections, which in severe cases, can result in permanent sight loss.
If you’re not deterred from popping your lenses in tonight, even knowing the risks, Ms Patel shared some vital pointers.
‘It is always best to consult with an optician before wearing any type of contact lenses to check they’re suitable for your eyes,’ she said.
‘If you do decide to purchase them, make sure they are from a reputable seller and have the recognised CE mark.’
This mark, found on the product’s packaging, she explained: ‘Indicates that they adhere to the set safety standards.’
But in any case, she said: ‘If coloured contact lenses feel uncomfortable at all, take them out straight away.’
This could be because they are dirty, have a foreign object in them like dust, or not be fitted correctly – or you could even be having an allergic reaction to them.
Ms Patel’s warning comes after several high-profile cases of eye injuries from coloured eye contacts.
Previously, a young girl, Emilie Turcotte was left blind for four days after wearing contacts for Halloween
When Emilie Turcotte, 11, went trick-or-treating in 2017, she wore contact lenses as part of her demon costume.
Her mother, Julie, claimed she allegedly bought the contacts for her daughter at Party Expert a chain party supply store in Canada as part of the costume.
After wearing them for four hours at school and taking them off for dinner, she put them back in to go trick-or-treating.
Despite taking them off before she went to sleep, the next morning, she woke up in agon with ‘blood red’ eyes.
She was diagnosed with periorbital cellulitis – an infection of the eyelid and skin around the eyes.
It left the young girl from Montreal in Canada temporarily blind for three days, fearing that she may never regain her sight.
While her sight returned, she had to wear sunglasses for a month so that her corneas could heal.
Jordyn Oakland allegedly had a bad reaction to costume eye contacts she wore on Haloween.
In another incident, Jordyn Oakland, 27, from Washington in the US, was left bedridden for a week fearing she’d go blind.
She wore costume contact lenses as part of her cannibal aesthetician costume for Halloween in 2020.
Later in the night when she tried to take them out, she said it felt like it was ‘stuck’, so she pulled harder.
Once removed, it initially felt like a ‘really bad scratch’ she said, but the next morning, she woke up in ‘excruciating pain’ barely able to open her swollen eye.
Ms Oakland claimed she went to the emergency room, where she was told the lens had removed the outer layer of her cornea.
She was allegedly told she might need surgery, and she could possibly lose her eyesight.
‘My vision in my right eye is noticeably worse. It was always not great I could see some small text from far away but now it’s game over with that,’ she said the following year.
‘If I’m looking at a notepad in front of me with my right eye, I can’t make out the words.
‘It was a real-life nightmare on Halloween. It was something I never expected to happen.’
She claimed to have bought the lenses from clothing retaile Dolls Kill on social media after seeing others use them.
At the time, a spokesperson for the company said the brand was not the manufacturer of the lenses.
The lenses manufacturer, Camden Passage, alleged that Ms Oakland didn’t read the instructions that came with the lenses.
