Four Terror-iffic Tips to Protect Your Eyes This Halloween
Pumpkins, ghosts and witches provide lots of inspiration for spooky costumes and festive attire. For many children, this fall holiday is the culmination of a year’s worth of planning.
Having the most elaborate outfit may be your goal, but without careful planning, you can easily double your toil and trouble. Halloween costumes can put you at risk for eye injury, but following easy safety tips will ensure you have all the treats without the tricks.
Below, we have provided four safety tips to lower your risk for eye injury on Halloween.
Use Soft, Flexible Hand-Held Props
Fairy wands and pirate swords can boost the fun of indoor play, but they can pose dangerous threats to your vision on Halloween. Even though Harry Potter’s broomstick or Luke Skywalker’s light saber are made of plastic, they can be hazardous and lead to eye injury.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 3,200 Halloween-related visits to the emergency room every year. However, children still run around dark neighborhoods holding sharp, pointy objects.
Hand-held props can cause painful corneal abrasions or even vision loss. Instead of using props made of metal or plastic, purchase flexible foam props that cannot damage vision.
Consider Wearing a Hat Instead of a Mask
Costume shops sell hundreds of masks, but these accessories are not always tested for safety. Masks can impair your vision if they are too tight or too loose. Often, the eyeholes of the mask are too small, and they limit your visual field. Children can easily fall or run into another person or object and get an eye injury.
Other components of costumes can also obstruct vision, including wigs and eye patches. It is always a good idea to try on any type of head or hair accessory before Halloween to evaluate how it affects your vision.
A decorative hat can be just as creative as a mask. Make sure it fits snugly on the head and is not floppy. If you are feeling especially creative, make your own hat by going to the craft store and buying embellishments like buttons or lace to attach to it.
Carefully Select Eye Makeup and Test it First
Makeup can be another interesting alternative to hats and masks. Using makeup can provide the pop of color you’re looking for without obstructing your vision.
The challenge with costume makeup is that most people don’t use it until Halloween night. If you are allergic to the makeup or have a reaction, your chills and thrills may come to a sudden halt.
When purchasing makeup, look for hypoallergenic cosmetics that do not include parabens or benzalkonium chloride. The FDA published a list of safe color additives so you can make sure your colors are FDA-approved. Certain pigments can also cause inflammation to your eyes, so avoid metallic makeup if you’ve never tried wearing it before.
Avoid applying makeup to the inside of the lash line because you can poke your eye or cause irritation to the delicate skin around your eyes. You may also want to avoid using makeup with glitter because it can flake off and cause corneal abrasions. Craft glitter can contain tiny pieces of glass or metal, so never use craft glitter on any part of the eye.
A few days before Halloween, apply a little of each type of makeup to your forearm and observe your skin closely. If you don’t have a reaction, that makeup will be safe to use on Halloween. After trick or treating, it’s important to remove the makeup right away and not sleep in it.
Only Wear Contact Lenses from Your Eye Doctor
Changing your eye color is a novelty, but it’s not worth losing your vision. You can purchase cosmetic contact lenses almost anywhere, from a gas station to a party planning store, but chances are high that those contacts may contain harmful substances like chlorine or iron.
Contact lenses are medical devices and require a prescription from a licensed ophthalmologist or optometrist. Therefore, you are buying unregulated contacts if you obtain them from anyone but your doctor.
Non-prescription cosmetic contacts don’t have adequate air flow and, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), can lead to the following:
- Bacteria build-up
- Deposits on the contact
- Eye infections
- Corneal scratches and abrasions
- Corneal ulcers
- Blindness
Call Your Ophthalmologist for a Comprehensive Eye Exam
Have you noticed your vision is not as clear as it used to be? Have no fear, ghouls and goblins. You may be due for a comprehensive eye exam with dilation. Getting your eyes checked is an essential part of preventive care because it can assess your visual acuity and test for chronic eye conditions like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.
Your ophthalmologist will check you for the following:
- Refractive error — nearsighted, farsighted or astigmatism
- Focusing problems, including presbyopia
- Other vision problems, such as strabismus, amblyopia or binocular vision
- Other diseases such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, which can often be detected in an eye exam
Call today to make an appointment for your whole family so you don’t “go bump in the night” on Halloween!