Eye-catching glamour

New-style extensions for lashes have wearers batting a thousand

BY HELAINE R. WILLIAMS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE



    Patty Knox, 46, of Sheridan lamented the fact that she had “no eyelashes.” Rather than repeat a bad experience she once had with regular strip eyelashes, she wanted to find something to make her lashes grow.

    So she surfed the Internet and happened upon the Web site for X Lashes, strands of synthetic eyelashes that are curved to replicate a real eyelash and applied, one lash at a time, to individual eyelashes in a semipermanent process called eyelash extensions. From the Web site, Knox got the name of Cassandra Taylor, a technician who applies Xtreme Lashes products at Ava Bella Day Spa in west Little Rock.

    In May, Knox visited Taylor and had her eyelashes done. She has been coming back for touch-ups since. “I love them,” she says of her synthetic lashes. “I don’t have to curl them with an eyelash curler every day.

    “It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it to me. ... It’s an investment.”

    Women around the country are echoing Knox’s sentiments.

    It’s said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and in the womanly quest for beauty, eyelash extensions are the newest draperies. Just as semipermanent hair weaves and hair extensions revolutionized the wig industry, “fake eyelashes” have given way to lash extensions ... which are much pricier but more realisticlooking and convenient. Bearing such brand names as X Lashes, NaturaLash, N Lash and L Lashes, eyelash extensions have proven especially beneficial to women whose eyelashes are lightening, shortening and thinning with age.

    Application is pain-free. As clients must lie on their backs and keep their eyes closed during the procedure, they often fall asleep. Best of all: eyelash extensions need no mascara or curling.

    Eyelash extensions offer more than meets the eye, says Phyllis Baker, founder of Denver-based NaturaLash — which, like the Spring, Texas-based Xtreme Lashes, offers products and application training.

    A transformation via eyelash extensions “just changes your face,” Baker says. “It opens it up and makes you look younger. The time-saving factor, I think is a plus. I always wore lots of mascara. I have not worn mascara for three years now. It’s just wonderful.”

    Experts estimate that eyelash extensions go back to the mid-20th century, but that the current trend is two to three years old. It began in the Asian community, they say, with most products made in China and Japan.

    “Asians usually have short, sparse, very straight eyelashes,” Baker says. The procedure went from California’s Asian communities to Hollywood — and “that’s when it went crazy,” she adds. Extensions began turning up at beauty trade shows and in magazines.

    There are exclusive eyelash salons in major cities, but as has been the case with so many other trends, Arkansas is just catching on to eyelash extensions.

    Currently, only a few certified eyelash technicians exist in the state, including Karla Scott, an aesthetician and owner of New Beginnings Transformation Center in North Little Rock. She is a certified NaturaLash technician and instructor.

    Eyelash extensions — which one client refers to as “lash therapy” — have transformed her business, Scott says, explaining that they have all but replaced the facials she once gave on a regular basis. She says their popularity upholds the old beauty adage: When a woman looks better, “she automatically feels better about herself. There’s a lot to be said for confidence and the power of beauty.”

    Scott, who took her training at NaturaLash headquarters in Denver, has been applying extensions for three years. She was the first certified instructor in the area and holds classes at her salon. As an eyelash technician, she charges an average of $200 for a full set; $40 for touch-ups.

    The eyelash-extension business has also been “really good” for Taylor, who has been doing them for two years. She charges $200 for a full set plus one free touch-up, and $75 for subsequent touch-ups.

    The needs of busy former coworkers inspired Xtreme Lashes founder Jo Mousselli to get into the eyelash extensions business. As an intensive care unit nurse at a major teaching hospital, she found herself surrounded by women who worked long shifts or who stayed at the hospital round the clock in order to look after their loved ones.

    “We all were in constant pursuit of that simple morning routine that made you look good and feel good throughout the entire day,” Mousselli says.

    She knew that the two pieces of makeup women always kept on hand, even if they had nothing else, were mascara and lipstick. Surfing the Internet, she discovered the concept of eyelash extensions.

    “I was simply intrigued by this idea of having beautiful lashes every day ... that you can sleep, swim, shower and [shed] tears in, and still look beautiful,” Mousselli says. She did some research, then asked women at the hospital if they would opt for eyelash extensions if they could have beautiful lashes every day. “I got an overwhelming [positive] response from these women,” although they were very skeptical of the procedure, Mousselli recalls.

    In March 2005, she began researching eyelash-extension products, training and application methods. By summer of that year, Xtreme Lashes was up and running, both physically and at Xtremelashes.com.

    Baker was also a registered nurse as well as an aesthetician and certified nutritionist. Having very short eyelashes herself, she first heard about extensions from a fellow aesthetician. She, too, went online for more information and subsequently went to California twice for technician training.

    “It’s like one thing led to another,” Baker says. “People started asking me to train them.” She decided to develop a training company, one that would include a product line. Her company also has a Web site, naturalash.com.

    But what’s so wrong with doit-yourself, much-cheaper false eyelashes?

    “Who wants to do that?” Scott says dismissively. “This [eyelash extensions] is like wearing your own eyelashes.”

    And they’re much better than the alternatives, she adds. “The majority of women have problems putting on strip lashes and keeping them on, or straight.”

    Knox says she tried the regular false eyelashes — once. “The glue would just kill your eyes,” she says. The eyelash-extension glue? No problem. And she has had no one say, “You have fake eyelashes.”

    Extension lashes come in different lengths — 6 millimeters to as long as 17 millimeters. There are also different thicknesses. Scott likes to work with thick lashes “because that gives more fullness and volume to the look.” The number applied depends on how many lashes the person has. Eyelash extensions shed as the wearer’s natural lashes shed, so customers are encouraged to go in for touchups every two weeks or so.

    As is usual with beauty treatments, several trends-within-atrend exist with eyelash extensions. They can be layered and highlighted. Xtreme, for example, offers 160 different lashes in various colors and three thicknesses.

    Eyelash extensions can even be studded with Swarovski crystals. “The holiday season is coming, and just putting a few crystals around the eye for your New Year’s party or your Christmas party just makes your eyes sparkle,” Mousselli says. “We’re having a lot of fun with this ... the customers just love it.” Her company also offers practical ancillary products, such as eye makeup removers and mascaras that will not damage or dislodge the lashes.

    Experts emphasize that women should beware of going to just anyone for eyelash extensions. At this time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not regulating eyelash extensions because they are bonded to the natural eyelash hairs, not the skin. But because improper application of extensions can cause damage to the eye, reputable companies sell their products only to those previously licensed as cosmetologists, aestheticians or health-care professionals such as registered nurses or physicians. New eyelash technicians must become certified through training.

    Because of the newness of eyelash extensions in their current incarnation, there’s a lot of confusion out there. Baker says she gets many calls from people who mistakenly think the eyelash extensions are a surgical procedure. They get them mixed up with eyelash transplants, which are surgical. And technicians familiar with strip or tab lashes (imitation lashes that come in fan-shaped clusters) think they don’t need training to apply extensions.

    “The ... trend I hope to see is that the public — both the professional in the beauty industry and the consumer — realizes the importance of going somewhere where the [technician] has been properly trained,” Mousselli says. Because of the use of the sharp tweezers and the glue, handling and training is key.

    “There is so much to applying these lashes properly,” Mousselli says. “Frankly, a lot of people think they can just do this because other companies encourage them to do this.” Bad work may run customers off even from the good technicians.

    Baker is of the same mind.

    Applying eyelash extensions is “a great service to learn,” she says. “Someone could make a living just doing this now. But they have to be good.”

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON Sheila Grinstead of Cabot (top) relaxes under a magnifier as she has eyelash extensions applied by Karla Scott at New Beginnings Transformation Center in North Little Rock.



Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON Certified eyelash technician Karla Scott carefully glues an eyelash extension onto one of Sheila Grinstead’s eyelashes.



Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/KAREN E. SEGRAVE The tools (right) used by Cassandra Taylor, a certified eyelash technician for Xtreme Lashes, may be simple, but applying eyelash extensions is a labor-intensive job that can have serious consequences if badly executed.



Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/KAREN E. SEGRAVE Patty Knox of Sheridan displays her new eyelash extensions at Ava Bella Day Spa in Little Rock. Cassandra Taylor, a certified eyelash technician for Xtreme Lashes, transformed Knox’s eyes. Getting the extensions was “not cheap, but it’s worth it to me,” Knox says.



Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/ STEPHEN B. THORNTON Karla Scott, a certified eyelash technician for Denver-based NaturaLash, works on customer Sheila Grinstead at New Beginnings Transformation Center.