Are you a liner lover?

With eyeliner continuing its popularity, make-up advice from the mainstream magazines this year is to ensure that you add and keep a black or granite grey eyeliner pencil in your make-up kit. This is great trend advice for that up-to-date look but it can play havoc with your eyelash extensions if you wear them, especially the fine synthetic lashes that are aptly named Mink because they resemble the texture of animal fur.

Gel liners, liquid liners, kohl pencils all have a greasy or oily consistency and although great care is taken to ensure the liner is removed with end of day make-up cleanse routine, there’s always a residue build-up along the lash line. To implement aggressive eyelid cleaning to remove all traces of the liner would have a detrimental effect to the eyelash extensions as they couldn’t stand such harsh treatment.

With every client who has been wearing eyeliner and comes to me for eyelash extension in-fills comes the necessity to spend time carefully cleaning and drawing off eyeliner debris from the natural and synthetic lashes before I can start to fill-in the gaps. Some clients have so much eyeliner accumulation along the lash line that some of the synthetic lashes are held in place by the liner build-up left alone.

The two main problems of using greasy/oily eyeliners is that a)they severely affect the synthetic lashes as they clog and mat the fine lashes together leaving the extensions all bunched together so losing that nice feathered look and, b) a continuous build-up of eyeliner can cause bacterial problems that could lead to conjunctivitis or bletharitis.

Along with the standard aftercare instructions for clients I add-in information about the problems of eyeliner build-up and suggest that a semi-permanent eyeliner felt tipped pen is the alternative if they are eyeliner lovers. These felt tipped pens give the desired line that dries without leaving any greasy residue and if you have a wobbly hand then there’s an eraser that will wipe off any mistakes. The only problem with felt tip eyeliners is they do dry out quickly however, the benefit of paying £4 to £5 for a replacement is financially better than having to have longer appointment time for in-fills or a new set all together.

Keep those lashes lovely!

Jane 🙂