Makeup Helped Me Cope With the Loss of My Eye

There's not a ton of silver linings to losing an eyeball, but it does leave you with an excellent canvas. I initially lost vision in November 2022 after a mass of inflammation cut off blood flow to my optic nerve. The eyeball stumped multiple hospitals, resisted two rounds of high-dose corticosteroids, endured 10 days of radiation, and spent over a year going through immunotherapy. As the mass grew, it started to push the eye about 26mm out of face (some days were worse than others). It didn't help that the eyelid drooped in a permanent wink and the surrounding skin appeared red and swollen, due to a lack of proper drainage.

Prior to my health issues, I never left the house without makeup. In college, I glued on Ardell Wispies for my 8 a.m. lectures and hit pan on my Anastasia Beverly Hills contour palette (like everyone else in 2018). It was an outlet; a source of creativity. But as my disability became progressively more visible, my relationship with beauty fell to the wayside. I watched tutorials and found myself envious of unscarred skin and fully functioning eyeballs. I tried to imagine how certain makeup trends would look on me, but most days, looking in the mirror was enough of a challenge.

In August 2023, I made up my mind about a few things. One, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life hiding from my eyeball. And two, I needed to get better at celebrating it. With a prayer and an impressive amount of eyelash glue, I meticulously attached clusters of silver rhinestones to my face, creating two sparkling teardrops underneath my blind eye. I shared a video documenting the process, and managed to reach over 500,000 people and hundreds of kind commenters.

The more I experimented with makeup, the more I appreciated this new version of myself.

Inspired by the internet's supportive response, I continued to take advantage of my unique features (including all my extra lid space). I tried everything from rhinestones to googly eyes (I managed to fit 18 of them onto my blind eye, in case you were wondering). Eventually, I started to match my makeup looks to my various eye patches, drawing hearts on my cheeks for a Valentine's-themed patch and dipping into blue glitter for a porcelain-inspired look.

When I finally had the eye removed in May 2024, the celebration started all over again. Prosthetics, I learned, didn't have to be scary or intimidating. They could be beautiful and otherworldly — like wearable pieces of art. I began a series where I matched my makeup to my “fun eyes” (creative prosthetic eyes that aren't meant to be realistic). For my “Coraline” button eye, I turned myself into a doll. For my blue and pink “galaxy” eye, I used temporary butterfly tattoos to create sparkly wings on either side of my face.

The public's perception of my “fun eyeball” ranges from radical acceptance to casual cruelty. I try to tune out the unsolicited medical advice and unfunny quips on social media, but it's not always easy. Before removing the eye, I used to wake up early to put on glittery eyeshadow and heavy concealer. No one can be mean to me if my makeup is fun enough, I thought to myself. Wrong!

“[It's] probably a bacteria infection from those horrid eyelashes,” one person commented on a PS video about my mystery illness . . . potentially missing the fact that I was only wearing lashes on my “good” eye. “Dig it out with a spoon, it's literally unbearable to look at,” another once wrote on my TikTok page.

The comments have eased up post-eye removal, but I won't forget them anytime soon. Thankfully, the more I experiment with makeup, the less I care about what anyone else has to say. I'm proud of how far I've come, and I continue to find beauty in this new version of myself — something I worried I wouldn't be able to do. I hope this is the happy ending to a very tumultuous story. But if more change does comes my way, I take comfort in knowing that I'll have the tools to figure it out.

Chandler Plante (she/her) is an assistant health and fitness editor for PS. She has over four years of professional journalism experience, previously working as an editorial assistant for People magazine and contributing to Ladygunn, Millie, and Bustle Digital Group.