Beauty Disaster
The week I lost my lashes.
Have you noticed how lash-obsessed we have become? Lash-obsessed and hair extension-obsessed? We just keep on adding hair… Of course, the lashes are nothing new. In the Sixties, girls put them on as readily as we apply lipgloss.
I was working with a make-up artist last week who informed me that girls used to put them on as they travelled to work on the bus. On the bus?! I’m lucky to get my concealer on right in the back of my Addison Lee car to work, what with all the speed bumps in the road!
With salons offering lash extensions that last up to four weeks, lashes are big beauty business, nowadays. It’s like we have upped the ante so much that a natural lash seems so, well, inadequate sometimes in the world of modern glamour.
Last week I sat in my local nail bar having a deep grey polish applied to my nails in readiness for a shoot the following day where my hands where being featured in a “backstage get- the-look” piece . They were advertising lash extensions, as are most beauty places, so I asked about them and they offered to pop a few on as I waited for my nails to dry under the ultra-violets.
Now, looking back, I should have been wary at this point as whenever my lashes have been done in the past it has taken at least an hour. I closed my eyes in readiness, and thought they would pop on a few in the corners.
Ten minutes later I knew I was in trouble. My eyes were stinging and I could feel glue all over the lids. I couldn’t really open them but squinting into the mirror I could see that I looked like a Priscilla Presley wannabe – gone very wrong. One hour after that I knew I was in big, big trouble. I shall spare you the details but this episode has led to me spending the night in A&E at my local hospital then going to visit an eye specialist and now, four days later, with no eye lashes bar a lonely bottom set. It will take six weeks or more for my lashes to grow back, and my eyes are so painful .
As I sat in A&E I felt vain and stupid. My boyfriend is from Argentina and has the thickest, longest lashes I have ever seen. I gaze longingly at them daily! (He thinks I am just extra-dreamy right now!)
The point to my sad lash tale?
As big as all these beauty trends are, and as quick as salons take them on in response to demand, training and professional care must come too. I’m all for lash-laws now! Check that beauty licence before you step forth!
