Lillian Gish claimed that D.W. Griffith invented false eyelashes for this film in 1916. He wanted Seena Owen (who plays Attarea, the Princess Beloved, in the film's Babylonian segment) with lashes luxurious enough to brush her cheeks when she blinked. In collaboration with a wig maker, who did the actual fabricating, the solution Griffith was credited with involved weaving human hair through a fine strip of gauze, creating false eyelashes. However, like many Hollywood legends, this claim proves to not be true. In 1911 a Canadian woman named Anna Taylor received a US patent for the artificial eyelash; hers was a crescent of fabric implanted with tiny hairs. Even before that, hairdressers and makeup artists tried a similar trick. A German named Charles Nestle (nee Karl Nessler) manufactured false lashes in the early 20th century and used the profits from sales to finance his next invention--the permanent wave. By 1915 Nestle had opened a New York hair-perming salon on E. 49th St., with lashes as his sideline. Also, one of the earliest known attempts to enhance eyelashes was by the ancient Egyptians, when royalty used black powder called "kohl" to protect their eyes against sand, dust and bugs. However, this was to provide practical benefits, rather than cosmetic.

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