Lash-ed and Unlashed: My Extention Experience

Normally I do reviews and some semi-personal account of my Mid-weeklies. Today I want to talk about beauty stuff I did outside of the creams-n-potions.

I have read a lot about eyelash extentions from English magazines and when I found a good deal in the Netherlands, I went for it. The magazines raved that they would feel like your own lash and would be almost effortless.

Hurray, I always was slightly envious of the long-lashed women around me that, even with the best mascaras, I could never come close to.

example of a before/after

The woman that would set my eyelashes was a short-haired brunette in her 40s and had some dramatic extentions that almost bordered to looking like Las Vegas Eyelashes. Strangely, as she said, the people around her "never saw that she had eyelash extentions", or, "they have never told her that she had something done about her eyes".

This story already questioned how honest the people in her surroundings actually are, or that they need glasses or such. I was also slightly worried that I would get 'exotic' Dancer lashes. I'm actually more of the natural type.

Anyway, I didn't run away and had to lie there for 2 hours straight, resulting in a pair of longer, but still somewhat natural lashes.

my eyes with extention (I changed eyecream after seeing this pic)

This was really lovely and the boyfriend didn't notice a thing: good work! With mascara they would look even more dramatic!

However:

• Pricy: The basic extentions costs me about 80 euros and refills are 30 or 40, depends after how many weeks you visit the place. That is quite some cash involved!

• Time-consuming: The beginners-set takes 2 hours. Even for refills I had to lie there for 1 1/2 hours: quite time-consuming. Another thing is that eyelash bars are not really that common in the Netherlands yet, so I have to drive for at least 2 hours to get to the place.

• Not-so-natural-feeling: I also tried a glossier type of extentions in another place: they felt really heavy and unnatural on the eyelids. So they were not the light-as-a-feather natural feeling. That woman, a girl in her 20s, didn't even wear them herself because she said she didn't like the feel of it: not quite the best advertising strategy.
• Safety:  (I remembered thanks to Mary in Wonder's comment). In my experience of the extentions being done by two different women I can tell it has been done in a good way. However, the people who can set these extentions only do a relatively short course and I'm not even sure if they are legally bound to have a certificate. In the long run, these are people who are working really close to the eyes and the slightest mistake can cause a damage to the yes. The first woman was eating a candy while doing the procedure (she said she never ate breakfast and needed something to counter her faintness) and the second one was really hygienic but gave me a disclaimer to sign before that I couldn't really sue her if anything happened. 

I suppose you really take a risk making people who aren't trained opthomologist work really close to your eyes. In the end my vanity won over these concerns, but after trying this out I wouldn't venture on such a procedure that easily again.

Overall, it looks like an easy-to-go beauty treatment but I went back to primers & mascaras again. At the moment I am trying out the Lancome precious cells range and another eyelash growth serum. I hope to get slightly longer eyelashes this way. At least, I don't have to spend so much time for beauty anymore, that isn't even getting noticed that much.

Perhaps I will have some done in the future. I really like them before I go on a holiday, because I can dive into the sea and plunge around without having to bother to put on mascara/waterproof eyeliners or feel concerned about looking expressionless without eye-makeup on.

Any beauty-treatments you do/did that you find actually too much maintainance in the long run?

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