Wednesday, June 20, 2012

First time eyelash extensions!

I first got interested in the idea of eyelash extensions back in January, and had been hemming and hawwing over it ever since.
I had been researching different beauty salons in my city that offer this service, mostly just doing searches through Yelp and searching by the ones best rated. They seemed to be pretty premium costs, so I wasn't sure.
Then a friend of mine (who has some gorgeous lashes) told me about her go-to eyelash place.
Pretty much just some random Vietnamese nail salon which also happens to do eyelashes. And for $20 cheaper than the place I was considering.
Since it felt like my first day off since school has started, I decided on a whim to pamper myself and try it out, so I booked an appointment :)


I wasn't sure I was at the right location at first, since they had 2 different seemingly store signs and also what appeared to be 2 entrances, but one door looked blocked off, so I walked into the door which was perched open.
The owner (a man) greeted me and I said I had an appointment. He asked my name but didn't seem to know what I was there for, so I had to tell him. He told me to sit down, and then quickly after I was whisked into a room in the back by this Vietnamese lady. She motioned for me to lay down, and I suddenly got a bit nervous.
I told her it was my first time getting lashes and asked how I am to care for the lashes, and she had no idea what I was saying...LOL. It seemed like we were exchanging a lot of "?????" on our faces during our entire interaction.
She had asked "what size? medium?" and me, being clueless, just had a ????? face. She showed me what the medium lashes looked like. I said I didn't want it to be too long or fake looking, and again she had a ????? on her face. She just kept saying "medium good for you". So what the hell, I said okay, and laid down.

I know Asian places are known for the silence (which is great, since I don't care for small talk either), but it was sooooo quiet. This was only my 2nd time being at an Asian salon (I'm Asian too), so don't think I've gotten used to that.
After 30 minutes of eeeeery silence I had decided that maybe I walked into the wrong entrance?? What if these people sniped me from the salon next door?? (They didn't. I went to research this after I was done and deduced that I was at the right place).
I was devising a lot of plausible different situations in my head and started to feel a little restless, hah.
After 45 minutes, I think the girl was texting on her phone?
And after an hour I think she was done. She had a fan turned to my face for 5 min or so.
Then she told me to open my eyes but they were stinging and watering, and I asked if that's normal. I guess it wasn't since she turned the fan back on and motioned for me to lay down again.
After another few minutes, I guess the glue had dried, so the stinging had mostly gone away, and then she gave me the mirror so I could have a look. In my blindness (my glasses were off), they looked sooooo long, so I think I looked a bit surprised.
I put my glasses back on and it hurt, since the lashes were hitting the lenses (I spent the rest of the day with my glasses slid down my nose, and just a tad blind. So classy).
Then she started to make some small talk, so we exchanged some more ????? expressions and I thanked her, paid, and left in a daze, so that was a total of about 1 hour and 15 min.
Once I got back in my car, my eyes felt like they were stinging some more. My car was boiling and I felt like I was sweating, so I didn't think that was very good, especially if the glue wasn't yet dry. I turned on the air con full blast and closed my eyes a bit and the stinging sensation went away. But then I noticed 3 of my lashes (1 on left eye, 2 on right eye) were sort of droopy. Uh ohs :(

 I was a bit worried (still am, a little) that they are way too long in length and look too false, but my friend says I'll get used to it. Overall I'm pretty happy!
The cost for me to get them were $55 + taxes.
For refills, I'd have to come back in 2 weeks, and I think the lady said it would cost $30-35.

Anyhow, these are my lashes.You can see one of the lashes on my left eye (first pic) being all drooopy droooperson.
(BTW I never realized how hard it is to take pictures of the eyes and at the same angle, hence why the angles look a bit off in my before/after shots.  I wasn't originally smiling in my 'after photos' but then realized most of my 'before' photos were with me smiling, so then my eyes looked all small, so then I had to go retake 'after photos' ...sigh, things I do for this post).



I have a feeling I am going to be obsessed with eyelash extensions now. Anyone else in that boat? hehe

4 comments:

  1. you did it!!!
    and they look wonderful!! haha your story was hilarious to read!! i would've been a little uneasy too with all the awkward exchanges with the lady. seems like you are dealing with some of the same issues i had (hitting glasses, droopiness...) i hope they last longer for you!

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    1. I did!! It's funny, I definitely kept your post about your not-so-great experience in mind and still worry it won't last long. I actually I had a dream (er...nightmare?) this morning about all the extensions falling out of one eye, lol. But thank you, I hope they last as long as possible too :)

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  2. Thanks for sharing your story about this- I was thinking about extensions but not am not so sure because I wear glasses a lot as well. Will they always hit against the lens? Did you get used to it?

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    1. Thanks for reading ;)

      It's only been day 1 now (officially 24 hours...haha) but I definitely have not gotten used to wearing glasses with them. As soon as I got home yesterday, I had to throw my contacts on. Even this morning I just found it too annoying and couldn't wait to put my contacts on. It's irritating to the eyes when wearing the glasses properly (probably not even good for the lashes), so then I'd have to perch them down my nose and sacrifice partial vision/look like an idiot.

      The distance between my eyeglass lenses and my lashes is quite small. If yours is a longer distance, or if you have a more rounded/curved shape glasses, it might not be an issue. I've also been readng that sometimes the tilt of the glasses could be adjusted by an optician. Or sometimes the eyelash technician can adjust the curl of the lashes so that it won't hit your glasses.

      Definitely some things to keep in mind, and hopefully you can find some sort of compromise, since despite all that, I'm quite liking having extensions!

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