By Leo Smith
Eyelash extensions. Just take a look at their heavily lined lids, and you'll see the telltale signs: super-human lashes that curl and flutter just so, creating that glamorous "je ne sais quoi" that's been the ideal since starlets first batted their eyes on the big screen.
"Every celebrity you look at in a magazine has eyelash extensions," said Tracee Greene, an aesthetician at Trilogy Spa in Hermosa Beach, Calif., where such extensions recently joined the list of spa services. "Hillary Duff. J-Lo. They all have them."
Fortunately for short-lashed women everywhere, you don't have to be a celebrity to score a full set of thick, long lashes. All you need is about $250 to spend in the name of sex appeal, and a little patience to endure the two-hour procedure.
"The eyes are so important," said Lu Costigan, the director of cosmetics at Trilogy. "Longer eyelashes really open up your eyes."
Unlike your run-of-the-mill store-bought fake eyelashes, which are applied as a single strip and are a single-event accessory, extensions are applied lash by lash and last about 60 days.
Hovering over the client's face and eyeing the thread-thin hairs through a magnifying glass, aestheticians must glue individual synthetic lashes, one by one, onto the client's own lashes. To prevent the glue from sticking to the lower lashes (only the top lashes get the extensions), the client must have her lower lids taped down through the entire process.
"It's not painful, not like waxing, or other things women do," said Louise Short ... a Trilogy aesthetician whose bright green eyes beamed out from beneath a set of perfectly curled, natural-looking lashes. "It's relaxing. I could fall asleep here."
Extension lengths vary from 8 millimeters (if you want a natural look), to 14 millimeters (if you want the Marilyn Monroe look).
Each eye usually receives about 20 to 30 faux lashes, each one applied using tweezers and a specially formulated glue. Consequently, clients can't open their eyes during the treatment.
"It's not good for people who are claustrophobic," Costigan said. "Some people don't like not being able to open their eyes."
The extensions have about the same life span as your own lashes, then fall out naturally. Clients are advised to come in for touch-ups to keep the lashes looking full and natural.
The biggest advantage, other than the allure of long, Bambi-like lashes? No mascara. Basically, it's a high-maintenance way to be low maintenance.
"I don't have to wear as much makeup," said Jasmina Bergeson, whose dark eyes were recently complemented by 14-millimeter lashes. "I just wake up and I go."
"When you wake up in the morning and you don't have to put mascara on, you feel really glamorous," said Costigan. "After I got them done, every morning my husband would wake up and look at me and say, 'Hey there, lashes.'"
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