The Eyes Have It

Since the moment Adam's rib was plucked out and given to sweet Eve, we have stared longingly into one another's eyes. So if we're talking glamour in terms of the bewitching kind, the eyes have always had it in spades.

Cleopatra knew what she was doing:

"The ornamented eye is ubiquitous in ancient Egyptian art. Hardly a portrait exists without an impeccably dark, outlined eye. Disembodied decorated eyes (the Eye of Horus) serve as amulets. Should an artist wish to indicate that a cow, for instance, is no mere bovine but a divinity in disguise, this too is indicated, not by a halo, but via eye makeup. And not just any eye makeup. There is a very specific, consistent style that even today has become a virtual shorthand to evoke the mysteries and glamour of old Egypt."

After all, there are instruments galore for showing off our peepers, including the outrageously fab fake eyelashes from Shu Uemura that are so hip right now, making an appearance in one of Neiman Marcus' holiday catalogs. (Man, I would kill to wear these puppies to a holiday party. How glam are they? Sigh.)

But why can we be mesmerized for hours by looking into our lover's eyes? It turns out evolution might have have hooked us up with our fascination for pretty good reasons. Look deeper, my pet, look deeper...

BBC: "It may be possible to read a person's personality through their eyes, Swedish researchers have said. They have detected patterns which show warm-heartedness and trust or neuroticism and impulsiveness."

See, as the Discover Magazine explained, crypts  are the squiggly lines radiating out from the pupil  and furrows are teeny tiny circular lines curving around the outer edge of the iris. (click here to see the far left eye with few crypts, the center eye with large crypts and the right eye with furrows).

"[Researcher Mats Larsson] found that a low frequency of crypts was significantly associated with tender-mindedness, warmth, trust, and positive emotions, whereas more distinct and extended furrows were associated with impulsiveness."

"Yeah, but we just found this out in 2007," you're saying. "We didn't really know what to look for until now." But maybe we've known all along.

Look, for instance, at the drawings of pretty girls in Anime, consistancy of one color (and always a glint of light) signify the most sought-after, tender-hearted girl.

The polar opposite of the mild character are the I'm-about-to-freak-out eyes with lots of circles (aka furrows) which universally signal something's about to go down. Think about cartoon character who's eyes are turned into swirling circles when they see the girl of their dreams, or morph into bulls eye's when they are angry beyond control-- "people with more furrows found it less easy to control cravings and were more impulsive."

So maybe in our collective unconscious, we've always understood that less crypts means sweet natured and more furrows mean impulsive behavior; apparently even kids can read what's really what simply by watching cartoons.

Anyway, turns out you can test out real anime eyes for yourself. Go get yourself some pretty anime contacts and go do some own experiments out in the field, just make sure to let dear Mats Larsson know what transpired.