beauty

Eat sauerkraut for the eyelashes of your dreams.

Image via iStock.

Think you’ve been blessed with long Bambi-like eyelashes? Well, you ain’t got nothing on Valery Smagliy, a 58-year-old Ukrainian man whose eyelashes measure a whopping 3cm from root to tip.

Three centimetres may not sound like much, but when compared to the average eyelash length, it’s three times as long.

According to The Daily Mail, Mr Smagily noticed his eyelashes started growing to epic proportions when he changed his diet.

RELATED: “Lash extensions made me look amazing, but also ruined me”

“I started eating something and noticed that my eyelashes really started growing quickly at the same time,” Mr Smagliy said.

But sadly, he’s keeping what that food is a closely guarded secret.

Selfish.

When women started stopping Mr Samgily on the street to ask how he had such luscious long lashes, he realised he could bottle this magical food group and sell it back to them for a small fortune.

“I'm thinking of marketing it so I'm not giving away the secret of what it is,” Mr Smagliy told The Daily Mail.

RELATED: Does eyelash-growing serum really work?

ADVERTISEMENT

Before you start googling “What do Ukrainian people eat?” we’ve done the groundwork for you.

The top national dishes in Ukraine include Borscht (a soup made from beetroot and other vegetables), varenyky (a dumpling made with potatoes, mushrooms, cabbage, sauerkraut, salty white cheese, fish, meat or liver), salo (cured slabs of animal back fat), holubtsi (stuffed cabbage), traditional sausages and deruny (potato pancakes).

If anyone's game to try all that food this week, please report back with your findings.

RELATED: "I was never expecting THIS when I gave birth”

But we shouldn't be too cut up about the Ukrainian man's decision to keep the secret of long lashes to himself. According to science you already have the perfect size lashes, no matter what length they are.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the perfect eyelash length is one-third the width of the eye – about the length you have been genetically blessed with. In studying 22 species of mammals, including humans, they discovered that one-third the width of the eye is the optimal length for keeping eyes hydrated and bacteria out.

If you're still not convinced, click through the gallery below for The Glow team's 9 favourite lengthening mascaras.