Welcome to the blog! I figured I could start this off with the foundation of life, which is Lashes 101. I want to educate you about your lashes for you to have a better understanding of how extensions come into play and why they do what they do, etc.
First off, we all have eyelashes and they grow out to be different lengths, thicknesses and have different curls to them. We have multiple layers as well which create the fullness we all naturally have.
Sometimes, based on our lifestyle, health conditions and medications we take, our lashes can take quite the hit. You'll notice that as you age, your lashes tend to get finer or shorter as you're not producing as much sebum to hydrate the hair follicles to nourish them for growth.
You'll also notice that the more stress you're under, the less lashes you will have at that time. Same with medication, you may be on a new medication and notice all of a sudden, you hardly have any lashes. There are many reasons both internally and externally that explain why are natural lashes look the way they do. It's something to keep in mind when contemplating getting eyelash extensions because the extensions can only be applied to as many natural lashes as you have. Many clients express that they used to have amazing lashes or they could get really full extensions before and now they have a lighter set or that they have friends who can get very dark, voluminous lashes doing the same service, so why can't they?
Most eyelashes growth to be about 10mm at the longest, so fear not, you're not alone in the short lash club. We generally have anywhere from 80-150 lashes on each eye.
Just as every other hair follicle on your body, eyelashes have three growth phases.
The first phase is Anagen which is called the growth phase. Typically it lasts around 30-45 days and the lash is actively growing in the follicle for that time until it gets to a certain length and stops. When the lash stops growing, going into the Catagen phase, referred to as the transition stage. In this stage, the lash stops growing and the follicle begins to shrink and this lasts about 2-3 weeks. If a hair is pulled out during this phase, it will take longer to grow back since the follicle needs to complete the stage before moving on to the third and final phase, the Telogen phase or resting phase. In this final stage, the lash rests in the follicle for up to 100 days before falling out and a new lash starts to grow. Each follicle of your lashes is on a different part of the growth cycle and a lash can take 6-8 weeks to grow back. Pulling your lashes out prematurely can cause permanent damage. This is also important to note when it comes to going to an improperly trained artist, which I'll get into in the next post. Also, since they're in different stages, it's completely normal to see 2-5 lashes shedding per day. I hope this explains to you in much more detail, how our lashes grow and how we affect them. I also hope that this helps you in understanding why we get fills after full sets and why you have to come in every 2-3 weeks as well as why you may have lots of lashes to apply to one day and then not as many on the other.
Thanks for reading!
-Andrea