beauty guinea pig part 2: in which i glue things to my eyes

i'm a bit of a junkie. a beauty junkie. and both in bed and in life, i always say i'll try anything once. this series details the spa/betterment/prettying procedures i've had the good fortune to experience. and the ones i'd rather cut myself than do again.

i've always hated my eyelashes. they're what i call "stubby asian lashes" which means they're perfectly straight and not that long. i don't wear makeup that often but i absolutely will not leave my house without at least curling my eyelashes and putting mascara on. i'm a little OCD about it.

so i decided i needed to try eyelash extensions. they can cost up to $300 for the really good ones that last months. i spent $70 and that lasted two weeks. i'll tell you right now, it was not worth that money.

you go in and lie down and she takes stock of what kind of lash you have, what kind of curvature there is to them. first, she told me i probably didn't need to be doing this because i actually had very long lashes, they were just very straight. she suggested getting an "eyelash perm" (i didn't know such a thing existed) and that it only costs $25. the thought of treating my lashes with a curling substance seemed too toxic and dangerous. so she then pulls out a little box filled with individual feathery looking little lashes. and one by one, she applies a black glue to them and lays it right on top of your real lash. it takes about an hour for her to finish.

she told me to open my eyes and when i did it stung so badly! it was all the fumes from the glue. i kind of teared up and tried to blink all the fumes out. so much for trying to keep toxic materials away from my eyes. i'm retarded.

when she handed me the mirror, the eyelashes seemed FREAKISHLY long. like, i felt like i had daddy long legged spiders clinging to my lids. as delicate as they were, they seemed so fake looking. she told me i just had to get used to them.

so i went home and eventually they started looking less circusy and more "look at this nymph with the beautiful eyes."

the real pain was the day to day effect of them. i know you shouldn't rub your eyes, but i'm a big eye rubber. nope, not with these. you start to rub your eyes and the delicate lashes start to feel like little pins that you're poking yourself with. they really stiffen the base of your lash so no rubbing allowed. also, wiping off your eyes in the shower is difficult as well.

two weeks later they'd all almost fallen off. they did not take my lashes with them, they came off themselves so my lashes were intact (though i'm sure i lost a few in the process).

verdict: it seemed like it was worth it until i really divided the money up per day and then i gawked at myself for spending the dough....