Tips for Avoiding Stickies!

What Are Stickies? Tips for Lash Technicians

Stickies are part and parcel of eyelash extensions—as much as we do everything we can to avoid them, we will inevitably have at least one at the end of an eyelash extensions treatment, and we need to ensure we’re setting aside at least 10 minutes at the end of treatment to check for stickies.

A ‘stickie’ is a lash industry slang term for one lash being glued to its neighbouring lash—they’re super damaging, and not to mention painful! If you’ve never had a stickie, first of all congratulations, secondly take it from me that it’s unbelievably unpleasant! It feels like something pinching your eyelid every time you blink, and it will drive you mad. If you’re so inclined, you’re also highly likely to want to pick or pull at it, which can also damage your lashes right from the root.

We have another blog post all about the different types of stickies, which is well worth reading to help you understand exactly what you need to look for in your own work. There are four main types and they’re all equally damaging and irritating, but vary in how easy they are to spot and separate.

The good news is that there are a few things you can do to help avoid them!

Use Tape to Help Isolate Lash Layers

Once you’ve completed your pretreatment routine, take some surgical tape and gently lift the lashes back. Take your tweezers and take the bottom layer of lashes out from under the tape. Place your extensions on those lashes and tape that layer down.

When you’re taping down extended lashes, it’s important that you don’t press the tape down super hard—you’re just holding them out of the way, you don’t want to squish them! Take down the next unlashed layer from under the tape and extend those. Continue until the set is completed!

This will help you to avoid stickies as there will be fewer lashes in any given area. It will also help you to speed up your lash set in general, as you’ll have to spend less time trying to find a naked natural lash.

Use Tape to Isolate Unlashed Lashes During Infills

You can use this method in reverse too! This will be most effective during infills, as what you’re essentially doing is lifting up and taping back the lashes which already have extensions on them to expose the unlashed lashes in amongst them.

Again, you’re going to want to just use the tape to hold the lashes out of the way. Stick down the ends of the tape and let the middle just rest on the lashes so they won’t be squashed.

Lash Across Both Eyes Evenly

This will also help ensure symmetry across your work. What’s happening when you do this is that you give the glue on that extension time to cure before the lash next to it is pushed up against it. Attach your extension to the last lash on the right eye, then move to the left. Go back to the right, then to the left. Continue this until you have all lashes covered.

Ideally, you should also leave a gap of about seven lashes between the ones you’ve covered to really help avoid squashing lashes into the glue and causing stickies.

Work in your lash map sections to create a sort of ‘lash skeleton’ as well. You’ll find this works on a couple of levels, as in the unlikely—but still possible—event of your client having to leave halfway through their appointment, they’ll still have a set that isn’t super one-sided! It also helps you stick to your lash map, so really, this tip is for every aspect of lashing!

Don’t Use Too Much Lash Glue

This is pretty self-explanatory—you don’t want a massive great blob of glue on the base of your extension, as the more glue that’s there, the more chance of that glue sticking to its neighbours.

Try not to use a scooping motion when you dip your extensions into the glue, as this will tend to pick up a bit too much. You want to slide the base of the extension into the glue and slide it slowly back out to get the perfect amount.

Make Sure Your Attachment Is Good

If you have criss-crossed fan bases, or if your extensions are sitting raised from the natural lashes or sit across them at an angle rather than flush against them, you’ll have more stickies in your work. Our blog post on lash placement and attachment tips includes helpful visuals and advice from London Lash Master Karolina if this is something you’re struggling with.

How to Separate Stickies

‘But I’ve done all of the above steps! I don’t have any stickies!’ Okay great! Let’s check anyway because they always sneak in!

First, you’re going to take your isolation tweezers and check between the layers from bottom to top to make sure no lash is stuck to the lash underneath it. This is the most common way that baby lashes get stuck to extensions, and the easiest kind of stickie to miss!

If you come across a stickie, use both pairs of tweezers to separate it. Hold one lash or extension with your isolation pair, then gently peel apart the other lash or extension from it with your other pair. This is often called the ‘banana peel’ method.

If you’ve been doing a volume set, you might find it easier to have a second pair of isolation-style tweezers for this, as it’s a bit easier to grab little fiddly things with them!

Next, you’re going to go through lash by lash to separate any stickies that are next to one another, again using both pairs of tweezers with the banana peel method described above.

Something that will make your life much easier when checking for stickies is good lighting. This might seem like a sales plug, and to some extent it is, but trust me when I say that good quality, bright, adjustable lighting will help you see and separate stickies without causing any eye strain, so it’s well worth making the investment!