You wanna come on a little journey with me? Yeah you do. Let’s talk about eyelashes.

About a month ago I tried eyelash extensions for the first time. I wrote a first impressions post about a week after I got them which you can read right HERE.

Right after I wrote the post, like the next day or something when I got out of the shower, HALF of the extensions on one eye had completely shed. It looked crazypants, and I’m not gonna lie when it first ahppened I was pretty pissed. So I called the salon and tried to get an appointment ASAP to fix them, but a combination of me being out of town for a few days and the salon being pretty busy left me to live with my uneven eyeballs for about 6 days. I was peeved, but there are worse things that could happen right?

The good news is, they shed because the glue failed not because my natural eyelashes fell out. Which means two things: my freakin’ actual natural eyelashes aren’t bald THANK GOODNESS, and it was easy to put some mascara on the natural lashes and blend it in with the extensions. To be honest, once I blended it with the mascara it was hardly noticeable but it was still pretty annoying because a lot of time and money goes into these things. At the same time though, I’ve been through enough beauty treatments to know that sometimes sh*t happens and you gotta just roll with it.

When I finally made it in to see the eyelash tech we concluded that the glue never took right because that particular eye had been watering like crazy while she applied them. It was time for a touch up at that point anyway so she was kind enough to fix that eye during the touch up at no extra charge (even though it took like an entire hour so that was cool of her.)

More good news! This time my eyes didn’t water at all and I’m now two weeks in to this second round of extensions and I don’t have any crazy bald spots to speak of.

I know a lot of people are wondering are eyelash extensions worth it so I’m taking you step by step through my journey to help figure that out. There were some bumps in the road so far but now I think we’re back on track.

I took pictures of how they are faring this time around, but fair warning I’ve been taking the pictures on the go because life’s been a little crazy lately so they aren’t the best quality ever, AND in half of them i’m not wearing any makeup at all so maybe don’t judge my crazy eyebrows, please. Those babies need gel at the very least or they just get so unruly!

This was taken right after the touchup. I had her leave off the longer “flare” at the end this time. For some reason that just doesn’t work well with my eye shape. That’s another nice thing about getting the extensions done though, you can totally tailor them to your needs and preferences.

Those photos are one week in. This time there was no major issue and I breathed a big old sigh of relief. You can see with them closed that a few had shed toward the end, but it’s really only visible when the eye is shut, so no biggie.

These photos suck a big one, I’m sorry! But this is what they are looking like at the moment, which is two weeks after the touchup. They are definitely more sparse but they are shedding evenly and still look totally acceptable without adding any mascara.

Normally I would go back at this point to get a touchup, but I’m going to push it a few more days this time because the wedding is next week and I want them to be fresh, yaknow?

So are eyelash extensions worth it? At this point I feel like they are, but not for ALL the time. If I was ballin’ out of control I might do this indefinitely, but at the moment I think it’s worth it IF you have a bunch of busy stuff and events and trips coming up and you wan’t to look extra glam and make your routine a little shorter.

TIPS & ADVICE:

• Try to sleep on your back. I have a really hard time doing that, but sleeping on them sorta crunches them up a bit, and they comb back into place pretty easily so it’s not a HUGE deal, but you definitely shed a few extra that way.
• DON’T try to sleep with an eye mask on. You know the ones that block out the light? I made that mistake and lost a few extensions. Lesson learned.
• You can totally amp them up with mascara. Which in the beginning I find really unnecessary, but as they shed it makes a nice impact. Make sure that you only use Blinc Mascara though because it removes easily in warm water and doesn’t have any oils in it which can break down the glue.
• If you have a hard time getting your eyeliner off without rubbing them, try those little pointy cosmetic cotton swabs. They make it so much easier!

That’s all I got for you guys for now, I’ll probably do a third installment of this after I get my next touchup and see how it goes and all that jazz. At that point I think I can give my full and final verdict on whether or not eyelash extensions are worth it.

Have you ever tried them? Tell me what you think!

UPDATE: You can now read part three and see how my natural eyelashes faired HERE!