FALSE eyelashes have become increasingly popular in recent years, but the trend has a strange and painful history.

Its popularity grew in the late 1950s when celebrity figures like Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth brought them into fashion.

False eyelashes date back to the Ancient Romans when a Roman author, Gaius Plinius Secundus who went by the name Pliny the elder, linked shortened eyelashes to a woman's chastity.

He falsely claimed excessive sex caused women’s eyelashes to fall out, resulting in women striving to keep their eyelashes long to prove their chastity.

The introduction of fake eyelashes was in direct contrast to the 1400s when women plucked their eyelashes out to emphasize their forehead which was considered their primary beauty feature at the time.

It was decreed by the Church that eyelashes and revealed hair of any kind were considered too erotic.

However, Pliny the Elder, who died in 49AD wrote: “eyelashes fell out from excessive sex and so it was especially important for women to keep their eyelashes long to prove their chastity."

The trend eventually went out of fashion, but in 1899, there are records that women had false eyelashes implanted in their eyelids with needles, according to Racked.

Those who didn't want to take the needle route tried gluing human hair to their eyelids.

The process was described in an 1899 article by the Dundee Courier which read: "An ordinary fine needle is threaded with a long hair, generally taken from the head of the person to be operated upon.

The lower border of the eyelid is then thoroughly cleaned, and in order that the process may be as painless as possible rubbed with a solution of cocaine.

"The operator then by a few skillful touches runs his needle through the extreme edges of the eyelid between the epidermis and the lower border of the cartilage of the tragus.

"The needle passes in and out along the edge of the lid leaving its hair thread in loops of carefully graduated length."

False eyelashes were marketed in the article as a means for women to improve their looks and enhance their beauty.

"Of the new process," the article read, "it is said, eyes which are at ordinary times only passable be- come languishing in their expression, while eyes which were previously considered fine have their beauty much enhanced."

In the early 20th century, false eyelashes were marketed as a guard against the glare of electric lights and slowly came back into fashion.

But it was celebrities who popularized false lashes as a fashion statement - largely thanks to Seena Owen's striking lashes in the 1916 Hollywood film, Intolerance.

David Wark Griffith was an American filmmaker working on Intolerance when it struck him that Owen's eyes could be accentuated by fuller and thicker eyelashes.

He ordered the wigmaker to glue eyelashes made from human hair to Owen's eyelids using spirit gum.

“One morning she arrived at the studio with her eyes swollen nearly shut,” actress Lillian Gish, who was also in the movie, wrote in her memoir.

“Fortunately, Mr. Griffith had already shot the important scenes.”

Griffith has been credited with inventing false eyelashes, but The New York Times reported Canadian Anna Taylor patented the procedure in 1911.

During the same time, a German hair stylist Karl Nessler, whose real name was Charles Nestle, created his own version of the false lashes which financed his salon on W 49th Street in New York City.

He placed chorus girls at the entrance to his salon to bat their eyes at incoming customers.

One columnist warned men in 1921 to be cautious when a woman with enhanced features looks their way, The New York Times reported.

“When a fair young thing looks at you mistily through her long, curling lashes, do not fall for it until you investigate,” the columnist warned.

“The long, curling eyelashes may not be hers, except by right of purchase."

Fuller eyelashes lash were fully embraced as a fashion accessory in the early 1950s when Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth worse fake eyelashes during photoshoots.

These lashes used a new material - instead of using hair, the lashes were made of plastic.

Monroe and Hayworth's incorporation of these fake lashes made their eyes look fuller and more eye-catching, creating a wave in popularity.

Although false eyelashes went out of style in the 1970s and 1980s, they resurfaced in the 1990s when celebrities like Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, and model Cindy Crawford began wearing them to public events.

False eyelashes have since become mainstream and sometimes exceedingly expensive.

The product is now sold in nearly every drugstore including CVS and Walgreens, beauty stores, and hair salons across the US, ranging from $3 in Walmart up to nearly $350 for professional services.

CEO & Founder of Sugarlash PRO, Courtney Buhler, told Bustle it's important to invest in false eyelashes to ensure they're done right.

"When you cheapen out on this service, it’s most likely not done right and with low-quality product applied by inexperienced artists causing costly results," Buhler said.

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