False eyelashes

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of young girls wearing false eyelashes. And I have only noticed this because these are HUGE FALSE EYELASHES. It really looks like these girls have gathered up pubic hair, formed it into a semi circle and stuck it to their eyelids. Or maybe they shaved a tarantula and used that to make false eyelashes. But these eyelashes are so FALSE that they are all I notice. I don’t see the rest of the face. Just the big hairy fakeness hanging off their eyelids.

Of course I also wonder: how much does this cost, and how long it takes to apply? Do you do this every day? Even to go to the gym? Why?

Here I have to admit, I have had false eyelashes done once.

It was some years ago in my pre-wedding days when I went to buy new makeup (getting married seemed as good excuse as any to buy new makeup). The girls in the shop were helpful in terms of recommending simple-to-use-products (for a mostly non-makeup-wearing person like me). They were also keen to recommend false eyelashes “to complete the look”.

Worn down by their effervescent cheerfulness, I agreed and they gleefully gathered the necessary supplies, equipment and whatever kind of super glue they use to stick these things on.

But it wasn’t what I expected, it was not a big single sleeve of lash. It was little mini eyelash clusters that had to be applied individually. And was therefore super time consuming. (Me in chair, panicked as two women with tweezers hover over my eyes, unable to check watch to see how late it was getting.)

Maybe for comedy effect, or maybe because this was only a test, they only put a few extension clusters on the outer corner of each of my eyes. So it looked like my eyes had sprouted hairy wings.

All things different are not comfortable at first. And this was not comfortable. I could see little black ghosts out of the corners of my eyes. I was blinking like mad. And then, when I forgot about them, I would feel I had something heavy on my eyelid and touch my eye to wipe away whatever it was stuck there. And then got a scare when I felt something unexpected there.

I think by the end of the day I had rubbed off at least one of the clusters. And despite being assured this would last “for at least two weeks”, I woke up the next morning with several more no longer on my eyelid but stuck to my face or my pillow.

With only a few random strands remaining I followed the instructions for removal. I was reassured that gently rubbing olive oil into my eyelid would dissolve the glue. And it mostly did. Except for one lash cluster that they maybe used a different type of glue for. It was holding on to my eyelid like it was stitched there.

Of course, I then felt incredibly stupid as I went about my day with just one long eyelash cluster stuck to the corner of one eye. It took a whole day before it came loose and came off. My eye lid was red (from rubbing) and greasy (from the half bottle of olive oil I’d rubbed into it). I couldn’t see how this would be a good look for my wedding day.

So maybe my own experience of false eyelashes has influenced what I think when I see others with them. I don’t see glamour or beauty. I think of pain, and time (and money) wasted).