Faking It

I have discussed this with my vintage girlfriends many a time. If we were to go on Snog, Marry, Avoid, (a make-under programme in which badly dressed, over styled and generally 'fake' looking individuals are stripped of all their make up, fake nails etc) we would probably matchup to those orange/mahogany skinned girls with horrible looking ratty hair extensions. Vintage girls love fakery. I enjoy looking like my face has been painted on. I have spent years perfecting this look and take pride in my eyebrows. I dont want them to look real. My aim is to look a bit like a mannequin head with a painted face. When I let my hair go to its natural brown it freaked me out becuase I could no longer draw my eyebrows on black, and my look had lost some of its drama. (I've recently dyed my hair and painted my eyebrows back to black).

Not only are my eyebrows very fake, and my make up look anything but natural, I haven't been outside the house with my hair in its natural straight state for years, I often wear fake nails too, and even when I'm not I NEVER go out with unpainted finger and toe nails.

Last night I thought I would try some semi-permanent lashes. After a photo shoot last week in which I was wearing the most spectacular lashes I thought it might be nice to give them a go on a more permanent basis.

I'm not altogether unpleased with my normal lashes. Naturally they are quite fanned out, so mascara makes them appear quite long. However I HATE the fact that the end lashes are shorter than the middle ones. Not at all like that perfect vision of sweeping lashes opening up the eye by appearing longer at the ends. So I purchased Eylure semi permanent individual lashes and decided to give them a whirl.

Before

After

Both pictures are without mascara or eyeliner

Application:

Tricky in the least. I applied 4 of the individual 'bunches' to each eye, and this took me almost an hour. You are advised to use tweezers but I found it was easier to use my fingers. I kept dropping them when I used the tweezers or putting them in place completely wonky. The glue doesn't seem to be enough either. More than half the little bottle is now gone after one application but I have only used a third of the packet of lashes.

Effect:

You can see from my before and after pictures that the result is an impressive but natural looking set of lovely long lashes. Applying mascara over them was easy and I didn't feel at any point like I was going to pull them out with the mascara wand.

Staying power:

Its only been one day since I put them on and one of the bunches fell off today. However, I think that might be a fault of my application. I think it might be wise to get a friend to help next time. After applying them as advised I actually have since swept the gluey wand across the top of the join of lashes and they definitely feel more secure. Whether or not they will last 4 weeks remains to be seen......