How to Apply False Eyelashes

For all of you who received the fabulous Shu eyelashes in their Christmas stockings this year, we need to figure out how to apply them. These type of eyelashes are called “strip” lashes, as opposed to their cousins, the individual lashes, and can be a little tricky to apply. My dear friend Suzzann confided in me that she has always had a very hard time applying them, so I thought I would talk about the basics this morning.

The most important thing about strip eyelashes is to practice. You will not get them on correctly, or even sometimes at all, the first time you try. So here are the steps you need to know, the skill will come with practice (which means, wear your eyelashes often!):

• 1. Prepare your skin as you normally would (Moisturize!), and apply your makeup.
• 2. Apply a fairly heavy coat of eyeliner, and smudge it well. This will help cover the false eyelash line, and make it blend with your own. You can put one coat of mascara on if you wish, but I recommend that you wait until the end to apply mascara if you are not well practiced at applying false eyelashes.
• 3. Put a drop of eyelash adhesive (Shu Uemura’s is great, and inexpensive) on your finger, pick up one of the eyelash strips, and lightly drag it through the drop of adhesive on your finger, then wipe the adhesive off of your finger with a tissue (so you don’t get it into your eyes!).
• 4. Starting at the outer corner of your eye, lay the strip as close as you can get to your natural lash line, being very careful not to get it tangled up in your natural lashes, and let it dry for a few minutes. You can press carefully on the ends of the strip (at the same time) to get better adhesion across the whole strip. I use my fingers for this, because I just know that I will poke the heck out of my eyeball with a pair of tweezers, and a big wound on your eyeball is NOT pretty. Ha!
• 5. With any luck at all, your false eyelash line is within that nice smudged eyeliner line, and you have got it goin’ on now. If not, then you have to start over. We do not want two visible lash lines. Either keep practicing until you can get the strip within the eyeliner, or, make your eyeliner a little thicker. We are indeed going for drama here, so don’t be shy about wearing pretty thick eyeliner.
• 6. To blend the whole kit and kaboodle together, use an eyelash curler and a coat or two of mascara. Be sure that your eyelash adhesive is nice and dry before doing this, or you will ruin the whole thing! You may find you need to shorten the length of your strip eyelashes (either the strip itself, or the actual length of the individual lashes)- do NOT do this while they are on your eye! Either remove them and snip them, or just wait until the next time and do it before you start.

I hope this was helpful, if you have any more suggestions, please feel free to add them to the comments! And let me know how it goes!