Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Bausch + Lomb, Getty
What would you say if we told you an eye drop is one of the most consistently recommended products? The one thing celebrities and beauty insiders almost always want to tell us about? That has been the case with Lumify. We started hearing about the $15 drugstore anti-redness eye drops when they launched in 2018, and the mentions haven’t stopped since. Our very first celebrity recommender, Catherine Zeta-Jones, put it this way in her “What I Can’t Live Without”: “I’m not sacrificing looks for comfort — though I would totally use them if they did sting because they seriously lighten and brighten my eyes.” In the years since, we’ve heard about Lumify drops from Courteney Cox, Alan Cumming, Ming-Na Wen, Alex Rodriguez, and dozens of beauty professionals, such as makeup artist Scott Barnes. Brooke Shields, Nick Jonas, Sydney Sweeney, and Jessica Alba are also fans. The recommendations were so consistent and nonstop that enough became enough: We needed to know how these eye drops ended up everywhere and became so indispensable.
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Chances are you don’t think about red eyes too often unless you’re prone to getting them. But it’s a bigger deal for people who are photographed for a living. “When you are doing an Oscar campaign or a ton of press as an onscreen talent, there’s a very demanding schedule,” says makeup artist Vincent Oquendo, whose clients include Hailey Bieber, Kendall Jenner, and Gigi and Bella Hadid. That’ll definitely drive up the eye redness. “The way that’s perceived on-camera is that they’re unwell,” he says.
Before Lumify, makeup artists smuggled contraband whitening eye drops from Asia and Europe into the U.S. Well-known American versions like Visine left the eye feeling dryer in the longer term, while the imports felt more hydrating. However, they did come with other drawbacks. The menthol-laced Rohto from Japan stung like crazy. Collyre from France was tinted with methylene blue, a synthetic dye used to treat a rare blood disorder that is definitely not approved for use on eyeballs. Oquendo remembers trying mentholated eye drops and complaining to colleagues that they didn’t feel good. “‘Beauty is pain,’ other makeup artists told me, but I didn’t really feel like that should be the case,” he says.
The redness-reliever category existed for decades before Lumify, but many traditional products, again like Visine, caused rebound redness and reduced effectiveness over time. They’re not a product ophthalmologists recommend regularly, though they tolerate occasional use. “They don’t address the root cause of redness,” says Dr. Julie Chung, a California-based ophthalmologist. Her job is to figure out what causes redness — dry eyes, allergies, or inflammation — and treat it.
In December 2017, the Food and Drug Administration gave clearance to Bausch + Lomb, the eye-health-products company, to launch Lumify, a solution with the active ingredient brimonidine tartrate at a 0.025% concentration. Lumify is different from previous redness relievers in that it brightens the sclera, or the white of the eye, by constricting the small veins on the surface that contribute to redness, while maintaining necessary blood and oxygen flow.
“Traditional redness relievers constrict both arteries and veins on the surface of the eye,” says Mayssa Attar, senior vice-president, pharmaceuticals and consumer R&D at Bausch + Lomb, and that results in redness rebounding worse than before. That’s because the drops block oxygen-rich blood and nutrients from reaching the surface of the eye. When the effect wears off, the blood vessels dilate larger than before to restore normal blood flow.
Ophthalmologists have used brimonidine tartrate in higher doses to treat glaucoma for decades and have known about its serendipitous brightening side effect, but no one had thought to leverage that for cosmetic use. As a glaucoma specialist who’s very familiar with the ingredient, Chung didn’t see it coming that a drop she prescribed to prevent blindness would be used by people to look pretty. She laughed when a makeup artist asked to use it before a shoot. “My eyes aren’t particularly red,” she says, “but I was shocked at how ‘awake’ I looked and how cosmetically appealing it is.” She even ended up recommending it to the Strategist (with several caveats).
In the years before launch, the Lumify team found out makeup artists were, as Ferris puts it, “seeking out specialty products internationally.” They had heard about Lumify from beauty blogs, online forums, and product reviews, and this was one of the first clues they had that it could have broader appeal. “It gave us confidence that we were tapping into an existing behavior and need, rather than trying to create one,” says John Ferris, the president of North America’s consumer division at Bausch + Lomb.
Bausch + Lomb suspected they had a winner, mostly because Lumify worked quickly and was relatively safer than other redness relievers. Plus a theme had emerged from their consumer testing: People were interested in brighter eyes, and eye appearance mattered within beauty culture.
The only problem was that neither editors nor consumers thought of eye drops as a beauty product. There was nothing inherently aspirational or glamorous about standing too close to one’s bathroom mirror dribbling in eye drops, mouth agape. Beauty editors who at the time were the most reliable brand-to-consumer use translators, shared that view and weren’t keen on writing about eye care.
Lumify realized makeup artists would be the right professionals to partner with. They operate in an environment where every detail matters, and their eyedrop-smuggling operation proved they had identified a need for the product and were going out of their way to obtain it. They held influence over editors and celebrities and, via that trickle-down effect, could influence public perception. “They had the credibility to help reframe how the category could be perceived,” says Ferris.
In 2017, Oquendo was one of the industry’s most in-demand makeup artists; he’d worked with Paris Jackson for the Met Gala, Lily Collins for the Cannes red carpet, and Ashley Graham on America’s Next Top Model. He was respected by his peers and wasn’t a gatekeeper — he freely shared product recommendations with editors and fellow artists.
He was also “an eye guy.” Oquendo’s skill was creating makeup that elongated the eyes while simultaneously making them look wide open, as he’s done for Hailey Bieber. Oquendo also knew how to leverage social media well and pulled back the curtain to give his audience peeks into how the celebrity sausage was made. “He had the credibility to evaluate the product and introduce it to audiences that influence beauty trends and product discovery,” says Ferris. Lumify had found its first ambassador.
Photo: @HaileyBieber/Instagram
In May 2018, Oquendo was on the film-festival circuit in Cannes and Toronto doing celebrity makeup. The brand sent him off loaded with product: “I had a giant Ziploc full of Lumify, and my international actresses were thrilled because they couldn’t get it overseas.” Many demanded multiples.
When on-set crews see celebrities ask for something, they’re immediately curious, so Lumify landed in the hands of hairdressers, stylists, and anyone who asked for it on any set Oquendo was on. He remembers distributing over 60 vials of Lumify to makeup artists and celebrities in the course of a week. He was handing them out like candy.
Lumify was also seeding product to more than a hundred leading makeup artists, and Ferris credits that as the one thing that really moved the needle on mass attention. Recommendations started appearing in the press from artists like Sandy Linter and Gita Bass. Later, Donni Davy, Patrick Starrr, Ash K. Holm, Daniel Martin, and Hung Vanngo all went on record about using it in their pro kits.
Even formerly reluctant beauty editors came onboard quickly: Allure was one of the outlets to review it positively the year it launched. The brand also turned to influencers and creators like Elsa Hosk, Winnie Harlow, Olivia Culpo, Kaley Cuoco, and Stephanie Ledda for early momentum. Alix Earle has mentioned it several times over the years, and it has been on Gracie Abrams’s, Jake Shane’s, and Katie Feeney’s feeds. Lumify began appearing in places the brand hadn’t reached out to, including in the background on shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians and America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
The brand has since launched Lumify Eye Illuminations, a line of three products including a micellar water, an eye cream, and a lash and brow serum, trying to extend its success into the skin-care world, but the eye drops remain the hero product by far.
Oquendo remembers randomly scrolling Instagram back in 2022 and landing on Jennifer Lopez sharing her beauty routine with Vogue. She held up her bottle of Lumify and popped a drop into each eye. Oquendo hasn’t worked with Lopez but knows people who do, and he knew it was genuine testimony: “It was such a proud moment that I was a part of this process of [getting it to her] because the only way she was gonna get it was through her makeup artist putting it on her.”
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