Eyelash extensions

Eyelash extensions..... beautiful aren't they?

Makes you think wow, that's awesome. I could amp up my beauty quota with this fabulous addition.

Don't do it.

I repeat. Don't do it.

Yep I've had this done and by all means, it looked freaking amazing. But it is SO hard to maintain and it's so expensive that it's SO not worth it.

Alright, so I believe this cost me at least $150, if not more. You get a choice of how long the lashes will be - generally you don't go super long because you'll look like a show girl. And probably a male show girl. You go with the shorter ones, short to medium. And yes, you can trim them after it's done... if you are game.

I went short to medium length. Then you have to decide how many you want, and how thick you want it to look. I think I went a "full set" but that doesn't mean they go on every lash, the beauty therapist does their thing and decides when you have enough. I think you get charged according to how many they use... maybe.

So you go in and immediately you can tell that the beauty therapist is thinking "wow this chick has money to burn". You have the initial chat about lenght, fullness etc.

The procedure itself, they have to clean off any makeup and then basically they are glueing each extension on to an individual eyelash of yours. The fake extension bit - you get told all this stuff about it being awesome "so soft" "just like real". I felt them before they went on and yep that's all true. (there's more to it though).


So it's a long process with the poor beautician girl glueing away at your eyelashes. It's a long time to have to have your eyes closed and, like with the perming, you can tell there is chemicals near your eye.

So when it's done again, as with the perm, you have difficulty opening your eyes. But this is way worse. Your eyes feel like they are glued together, and kind of feel a bit heavier than they were before. It took a fair bit of gentle wiping to be able to get my eyes fully open, and my eyesite was all blurry by this stage.

I look in the mirror and WOW amazing. At this point I'm thinking - this is so cool!!
But something in the eyes of the beautician when I'm paying tells me there may be more to it.



After care. Sigh.

1. You have to sleep on your back because your eyes CAN NOT touch the pillow. Even if you have a satin pillow. You MUST sleep with your face up. Why? Because if you go smooshing your face into the pillow, you will kink the extensions. And there is no coming back from that. I had many nights of no sleep, then gave in and kinked an eyelash - I had to pull it off.
   
   Oh and when I say pull it off - you *can* get it off and keep your normal eyelash, you just have to be careful.
   
   
2. Even though I had the short/medium - I couldn't wear glasses or sunnies because those babies kept banging against the lenses. It doesn't sound like a big deal but trust me it was super annoying.
   
   But hey, I looked awesome. Boo yah. Who cares....... But wait.
   
   
3. Remember how I said the extensions were soft and lovely? They are. But glue isn't. And to get that sucker to stay on your eyelash, it takes a good 3mm of glue at least. And that 3mm section gets harder and harder every day. Suddenly you have these mega hard eyelashes that you can't touch, you can't sleep on, and you can't even hug someone for fear they will smoosh your face into their shoulder and heaven forbid - kink or knock off one of your precious precious lashes.
   
   
4. Sure. You can get "refills". But they cost a fortune. And the time you need to get it done is annoying. So you end up with some falling off every now and then. Yep you'll definitely know it has fallen off because suddenly you see this way thicker than normal eyelash in the sink, and it's as hard as a toenail. And you see a gap in your "full" set of lashes. Yeh you can get away with that for the most part... but after a while it starts to become obvious... which leads me to....
   
   
5. You pull them all out.I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted sleep, I wanted to have normal huggy human interaction, I wanted to not feel as if I had a giant layer of plastic above my eye.I had to pull them out individually.I kept all my original lashes, but washed a couple hundred dollars down the drain. I believe I held out with them for 3 weeks?? That was pretty good because I really wanted to get rid of them well before that. And a little bit of me died everytime one fell out or got kinked. Sigh.
   
   
   

But I did look pretty..... so pretty............ *sob*

Clear eyes

Clear eyes eye drops. I had heard good things about these and basically every woman's magazine I pick up has a suggestion that you use these "every day" so that you look more alert and ultimately... more beautiful of course.

I never really got it to be honest. Sure, I bought them on the advice of magazines. But I buy EVERYTHING on the advice of magazines. I'm a classic sucker.

I bought them, tried them for a couple of days.... and thought... my eyes look the same why am I wasting time and putting something in my eyes that maybe I shouldn't be using so often.

BUT THEN.....

One beautiful morning I woke up from a big night out and started getting ready to head to a work offsite. Looked in the mirror and yikes - I had little red squigglies all over the whites of my eyes. I looked like a seasoned drug addict!!

It was Clear Eye's moment to shine. AND IT DID. I popped a couple drops in each eyes and wow, no more red bits, just nice and normal looking eyes.

Sure - I still had the lazy swagger of someone who had too big a night, but I *did* earn myself a comment from a mate at work of "how come I'm so hungover and you're fine".

Conclusive evidence.

Don't believe when magazines say you should use this everyday (unless you go on a bender every night). Save this one for those occasional mornings where it really can make a difference.

Eyelash perm

Eyelash perm!

Clearly this is not a picture of MY eyes, but you get the idea. So I've only had this done once.

Cost about $30 to $50 depending on where you get it done. It only takes say 30 mins?

You go in, they ask you which of two styles you would prefer - one is getting the curl from the roots, the other is curling the ends. Curling the ends is probably more dramatic, but you get that kind of look of your eyelashes trying to go back into your head. Too annoying for me. I opted for the curl at the base, which "opens" up your eye more.

So you go in, lie down, they clean off your eye makeup, they pop this roll thing above your lashes, then paint some stuff on and you sit there for a while waiting for it to work, and then they wipe it off.
In a nutshell.



So you have to lie there with your eyes shut for quite a while. It's awkward, and I can imagine it would be uncomfortable for some people. I made conversation with the beauty girl about movies. I'm sure she was thrilled.

She then went on for a while about "I don't really get why people get this done, it's such a waste of money". I always enjoy someone bagging out what I'm doing whilst I'm getting it done. hehehe

Ok so it didn't happen to me, but I could feel the strength of the chemicals close to my eye, and I imagine if that substance got in your eye it would sting really bad. Again - it didn't happen to me.

Next they wipe the stuff off, and you can open your eyes again, though it's somewhat hard. Your eyes can still feel the effect of the chemical, and you've been lying there for a while so you kind of want to have a nap.

She then popped out the mirror to show me. Umm they looked exactly the same so on the outside I was like "wow awesome! Thanks!" but on the inside I was thinking "wow total waste of time and money".

Went home, looked at my eyes again - yeh still no real difference. Oh well at least I gave it a shot.

The next day I went to work, with mascara on... and my boss (male) says to me "oh wow did you get your eyelashes trimmed?"

Ok first things first - my reaction was a bit of a "what on earth are you talking about??"

Then he told me this story about how he didn't understand why girls needed to trim their lashes and "how much could they really grow anyway" and how there was a girl on his train everyday that got out her "guillotine" and trimmed those lashes every morning. Again "how much could they grow in one day....?"

hehehehhe yes. I laughed.

I think we all know what he was talking about. hahah so cute. He really was quite relieve when I explained the contraption to him and sent him a wiki link to it. He was genuinely concerned for this girl's safety using that guillotine on the train!

In so saying - I wouldn't risk curling my lashes on the train - one bump and you surely rip those suckers out. Yikes.

Ok back to my point. HE NOTICED.

I went to the bathroom to have a look-see and WOW. They looked frakking amazing. My eyes were so wide and my lashes looked sooooo good.

I loved it.

It lasted for about a month and I've got to say that I had at least 6 unsolicited comments about them - and from people that had no idea I had had something done.

So a definite thumbs up for me.

But, I have to admit I haven't had it done since.

Why?

Well time and money. It doesn't last that long and it costs money and takes time. If I was a wealthy socialite yep I'd get it done constantly, but I'm not. So I guess I'd just save it for a special occasion.