By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS


Colored lenses look cute but rob the eyes of oxygen.

Circle lenses, popularized by Lady Gaga’s wide-eyed look in a recent video, have gone mainstream. In vogue in Japan, Singapore and South Korea, they are rapidly catching on elsewhere, despite fears that they may be unsafe.

Lady Gaga’s wider-than-life eyes were most likely generated by a computer, but teenagers and young women have been copying them with special contact lenses imported from Asia. The colored lenses - sometimes in violet or pink - make the eyes appear larger because they cover not just the iris, as normal lenses do, but also part of the whites.

The lenses give wearers a childlike, doe-eyed appearance. Fameseekers in Korea post cute but sexy head shots of themselves online, nearly always wearing circle lenses to accentuate their eyes. The lenses are widely available online , both in prescription strengths and in purely decorative styles.

In the United States it is illegal to buy contact lenses without a prescription. Sites that sell lenses approved by the Food and Drug Administration are supposed to verify customers’ prescriptions with their eye doctors. Circle lens Web sites have no such obligations.

Karen Riley, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A., said that after learning about circle lenses, she wrote in an e-mail message, “Consumers risk significant eye injuries ? even blindness” when they buy contact lenses without a valid prescription or help from an eye professional.

Dr. S. Barry Eiden, an optometrist who is chairman of the contact lens and cornea section of the American Optometric Association, warned that ill-fitting contacts could deprive the eye of oxygen and cause serious vision problems.

But circle lenses are turning up in American schools . “In the past year, there’s been a sharp increase in interest here in the U.S.,” said Joyce Kim, a founder of Soompi.com, an Asian pop fan site with a forum devoted to circle lenses.

Ms. Kim, 31, who lives in San Francisco, said that some friends her age wear circle lenses almost every day.

Kristin Rowland, a college senior from Shirley, New York, which is east of New York City, has several pairs . Without them, she said, her eyes look “really tiny.”

Nina Nguyen, a 19-year-old college student from Bridgewater, New Jersey, a suburb of New York, said she was wary at first. “Our eyes are precious,” she said.

But after she saw how many students had circle lenses - and the number of users online - she relented. She describes herself as “a circle lens addict.”

Many girls are embracing the look. “Circle lenses are not just for Asian people,” said Crystal Ezeoke, 17, a second-generation Nigerian from Lewisville, Texas. In videos she posts to YouTube, her gray lenses make her eyes look an otherworldly blue.

At Lenscircle.com, which is based in Toronto, most of the customers are Americans, ages 15 to 25, who heard about circle lenses through YouTube reviewers, said Alfred Wong, 25, the site’s founder. “A lot of people like the dolly-eyed look, because it’s cute,” he said.

A makeup artist named Michelle Phan introduced many Americans to circle lenses through a video tutorial on YouTube, where she demonstrates how to get “crazy, googly Lady Gaga eyes.” Ms. Phan’s video, called “Lady Gaga Bad Romance Look,” has been viewed more than 9.4 million times.

“In Asia, it’s all about the eyes in makeup,” said Ms. Phan, a Vietnamese- American blogger who is now Lancome’s first video makeup artist. “They like the whole innocent doll-like look .”

Jason Aw, an owner of PinkyParadise. com, a site based in Malaysia, is aware that his shipments to the United States are illegal. But he is convinced that his circle lenses are “safe; that is why a lot of customers will recommend” them to others.

Melody Vue, a 16-year-old in Morganton, North Carolina, was 14 when she begged her parents for her first pair, she said. She now owns 22 pairs. These days, however, she is having second thoughts about them - but not for safety reasons.

Circle lenses have just grown too popular, Ms. Vue said.

“It kind of makes me not want to wear them anymore, because everyone is wearing them.”