Do Lash Extensions Damage Your Lashes? Not Really, But This Might…
Eyelash Extensions causing damage is old news. If extensions are applied safely and properly by a professional lash technician, then the natural lashes are safe and can have lashes applied again, and again, and again (assuming your clients are keeping up with their aftercare routine!).
With that being said though, there is one thing that creeps in and causes all sorts of damage and discomfort if it’s left unchecked. Here’s everything you need to know about stickies, and how you can stop them from being a problem!
First Things First, What is a Stickie?
A stickie is a lash industry term for when you have eyelash extensions sticking together after a lash set. Stickies can be avoided a bit, but due to the proximity of natural lashes to one another, they’re kind of unavoidable and are pretty much part and parcel of an eyelash extension treatment.
Just because they’re inevitable, doesn't mean that they have to be left for the client to experience the discomfort of, though – if you know what you’re looking for, they’re very easy to separate, leaving our clients lashes safe, and our clients happy.
Different Types of Stickies
Stickies occur when your freshly applied extension sticks to another lash. This can happen in a few ways.
Stickie Type 1: The most common way is two neighboring eyelash extensions sticking together because they were pressed together as you isolated another lash, when one or both of them had just been applied.
Stickie Type 2: The second type of stickie is a lash sticking to a baby lash next to or underneath it. This is one of the most difficult types of stickies to notice and to separate, especially if the baby lash is very new, so it’s really important to avoid and check closely for these.
Stickie Type 3: The third type of stickie is when two natural lashes stick together – this is the rarest type of stickie, but occurs either when a lash extension has been removed due to incorrect placement of the extensions, or can happen after removal if some of the glue and remover residue stayed on the lashes and wasn’t removed entirely. For a full guide on removing eyelash extensions, take a look at this article.
Why are Stickies so Bad?
Eyelash extensions sticking together is bad news in the short term for client comfort, and in the long term for clients’ lash health. Stickies aren’t often noticeable for the first few days of wear, but as each natural lash is on its own growth cycle, it soon starts to feel like a pinching sensation on the eyelids. This either leads to clients being uncomfortable, or pulling the lashes out to relieve the discomfort, neither of which are ideal.
Natural lashes being pulled out—either due to natural lash growth where one lash is pulled out as the other lash grows, or due to clients getting annoyed by the discomfort—means that the follicle can be damaged permanently, leading to lashes growing back much finer and weaker than they were before, or sometimes not even growing back at all.
By leaving eyelash extensions sticking together, you’re helping to perpetuate the myth that eyelash extensions cause damage to the natural lashes, which, if they’re applied properly, they simply don’t.
Consider too that on a business level, clients may simply choose not to come back to you if you leave them with stickies, so you’ll be doing your business a disservice in the short and the long term – if clients are still coming, thinking that stickies and discomfort is normal, there will come a time when they are no longer able to have eyelash extensions as they won’t have enough lashes, or strong enough lashes to be able to carry a set of eyelash extensions safely.
How to Prevent Stickies
Stickies are inevitable to some degree, but you can put some measures in place to reduce the number you’ll get. The first type of stickie, as you’ll know, is caused by two neighboring lashes sticking together as you work. A really simple way to avoid this is to work evenly across both eyes, moving from the outside in, leaving a few lashes in between each lash you apply. Not only does this help you to reduce the number stickies in your lash sets, but it also helps to prevent shock polymerization, and it has the added bonus of giving your client a more even look in the event that you have to cut their lash appointment short.
The second type of stickie is more difficult to avoid, as baby lashes can be more difficult to see. Make sure you have really good lighting like a Glamcor Light which is adjustable, prevents eye strain, and which makes even the teeniest tiniest lashes easier to see. In addition to this, make sure you’re not getting too much glue on the bases of your eyelash extensions, and it’ll be much easier to avoid this type of stickie, and separate it if it does arise.
Lastly, the third type of stickie can be simply avoided by ensuring that all glue residue is removed from the lashes during removal or if an extension has to be corrected.
To avoid stickies in general, try using tape to pull the lashes back so that you can lash layer by layer.
How to Check Your Lash Work for Stickies
Once you’ve finished your lash set, you need to check your work for stickies – even if you think you don’t have any at all, you’re not doing yourself or your client any favors by not checking. To check for stickies, you’ll need two pairs of isolation tweezers. Simply go through the lashes one by one, and check layer by layer to make sure no lashes are stuck together. If you come across a stickie, grip one of the lashes with the tweezers in your left hand, and the other in your right, then gently peel them apart.
All in all, while you can’t completely avoid having eyelash extensions sticking together, you can reduce the amount you get, and you can absolutely eliminate the damage that it can do simply by taking the time to separate stickies that you find when you’ve finished your lash set.
