Say goodbye to your falsies, girls! And I’m not talking about your “chicken fillets” either. (They can stay for the time being)

Cosmetics companies are going to great lengths to develop new products which will replace, supplement or enhance the already lucrative mascara market after sales in this area, which have dramatically increased. I personally blame stars like Nadine Coyle and the Pussycat Dolls for making tarantula lashes (albeit false ones) so in vogue. Thanks to them the natural look is gone and we all feel under-dressed and inadequate if our eye makeup doesn’t resemble Barbara Cartland’s.

Incredibly, women in the UK spent £192m last year on mascara alone, while sales of false eyelashes went up by a whopping 90%. But even these figures could pale into insignificance if a new cosmetic technique from the States catches on over here.

“Eyelash transplant does for the eyes what breast augmentation does for the figure,” says Dr Alan J Bauman, an eyelash-ologist from Florida.

He claims that his pioneering procedure is very similar to the “plug and sew” technique used on balding men: a strip of hair follicles from the back of the scalp is harvested and then each one is sewn in place individually to create incredibly long sweeping lashes.

It costs approximately $3,000 per eye but there is just one problem — the hair continues to grow, so transplantees will need to have their new eyelashes trimmed every couple of weeks for the rest of their lives.

Are they serious!? That sounds about as appealing as having a combined dental and gynaecology appointment before doing five rounds with Mike Tyson. Eye don’t think so.

Meanwhile another treatment is in development which is much less radical and eye-wateringly painful. It seems that a drug used to treat glaucoma appears to produce longer, lustrous lashes as a serendipitous side effect. You can imagine the pharmaceutical boffins’ reactions to such a discovery, can’t you?

Eureka! Stop the glaucoma medication at once! There’s lashes to be lengthened and money to be made! So the race for disproportionately long Bambi-lashes is on! Who wins is yet to be seen. Fancy a flutter?