A woman in Malaysia, Shakira Mamii, shared that she had to remove the entirety of her eyelash extensions of risked not being allowed to renew her passport at the Johor Immigration Office, according to China Press.
She shared that on 4 April at about 8,30am, she had walked into the immigration office and got her queue ticket, and added that she made sure that she was dressed appropriately and tied her hair back in a ponytail with no bangs or stray hairs.
After waiting for 2 hours, the immigration officer who served her didn’t have any issues with her appearance, before another female officer pointed out her long eyelashes and told her to remove them, citing how her face needs to be “original”.
The woman informed them that she can’t remove her long eyelashes because they were eyelash extensions and not false eyelashes.
Unmoved, the immigration officer told her to get it sorted out at a salon and come back later, offering to help her keep her queue number.
The woman said that she knows contact lenses and makeup are not allowed, but she may have overlooked this point. However, she added that she sees her extensions as her own eyelashes.
She eventually resorted to plucking out her eyelashes off her eyelids one by one inside the toilet, saying that even her own original eyelashes came out.
Even though it didn’t hurt, the woman said that when she was removing the extensions from her eyes, her heart was aching.
Upon returning to the immigration officer’s counter, the officer asked her how she managed to fix it so quickly, and the woman only smiled in response.
After she had successfully renewed her passport, she went back to a salon later that night and got her eyelashes fixed, saying that she was afraid that it would take months for them to grow back and she spent another RM100 (or SGD$30) to get them fixed.