EYELASH EXTENSIONS – WORTH IT?

Look at the adverts with celebrities like Eva Longoria and others – their eyelashes look fabulous and the adverts claim it’s all due to some amazing new mascara that somehow miraculously extends, curls, thickens or whatever your lashes.

But take a moment to read the small print – in many cases hidden away, in type you can hardly read, are words to the effect that “false eyelash inserts have also been used to add more volume”. Surprise, surprise. It’s not really the magic mascara after all.

So what are these false lashes? Can mere mortals have them? The answer is yes.

I recently tried out a set of Jinny Lashes. http://www.jinnylash.com/ They are individual eyelash extensions that are applied by hand. Each individual lash extension is glued (using a medical grade surgical glue) to your own individual lashes. About 75 are added for a full set, taking just over an hour and costing around £150.

It’s a pain free, relaxing treatment and the result is stunning!

I’ve never been too bothered about my lashes – they seem to be Ok, nothing special, but OK. However, one look in the mirror with my new longer, thicker, curlier lashes and I was, to my surprise, amazed. They transformed my face and for the next few weeks I didn’t need any makeup on my eyes. It was the perfect “get out of bed looking like you’ve got a make up on” treatment.

I got a large number of comments on them, from both men and women. They all said what amazing lashes I had and none realised they were false. I was tempted to claim them as my own, but decided that honesty was the best policy or they’d expect me to look like that for ever!

The lashes gradually fall out over 3-4 weeks as your own lashes shed. You can go back for in-fills (a bit like nail extensions), but if you can’t afford a second set just now, then you can use a trick I discovered – but you need to be very careful! As they were beginning to look sparse and a little odd (at about the 6-7 week mark) I very carefully trimmed the extensions to just a little longer than my natural lashes – this meant they no longer looked sparse and I now had a second lease of life out of them as they made my existing lashes look thicker. Eventually they all dropped out naturally and, like a hair colour that fades rather than grows out, there was no awkward “in between” phase.

You need to care for them carefully and avoid oily makeup remover and fiddling and pulling at them, but other than that it’s a case of “get them glued on and leave them alone”.

As a child I always used to blow a wish on an eyelash that fell out – I wonder if you can have bigger wishes and bigger results with longer lashes? Must be worth a try.

More information about Jinny Lashes;  http://www.jinnylash.com/

You can also hear an interview with Lucy Dartford from Jinny Lashes on  PASSION for the PLANET radio and on-demand at PASSION for FRESH IDEAS

About the Author: Chantal Cooke is a professional journalist and co-founder of PASSION for the PLANET