It Seemed Like a Good Idea...

I’m not sure what possessed me to try this, it just looked…interesting, or like something someone needed to test. Anyway, there they were, little bits of false eyelashes that were supposed to be glued individually to the eye area to make a realistic set of lashes.

Mind you, I have never, in my life, worn false eyelashes, but hey, we’re in the South, home of some of the biggest false eyelashes and hair in the world, so how do they do it? Theatrical displays run in the family so I had to check it out.

So I brought these home (very inexpensive from CVS) with the proper glue substance and guffawed at the fact that salons charge some $40 to apply these suckers. Surely I could do it with my eyes closed.

It turns out you have to do it with your eyes closed, since applying them means closing one eye and then blocking the other eye with the hand applying the lashes. My first attempt (eye number 1, lash number1) went pretty well. Beginners luck. Subsequent attempts resulted in lashes on my eyelid, eyebrow, cheek, hand and finally the floor, which started to take on a creepy look like a little spider gathering.

I proceeded doggedly on, glue was beginning to form stalagmites on my fingers and my original lashes were becoming one with each other. I finally called my Dear Husband to have a go. He is gainfully employed as a Dermatological surgeon, (“…the cancer, I forgot about the cancer…”*) so I figured if anyone could do it he could. Apparently it takes more skill to apply these lashes than a surgeon, used to tiny maneuvers, could manage. Even weirder, he made no comment about my trying out these little beasts as though I do this sort of thing all the time. I’m figuring that either:
1. He secretly liked the looked of random lashes on my eyelid,
2. He was also curious about this process, since he might one day have to perform this operation in his office,
3. He knows me a little too well.

Finally I had to give up. Resistance was futile and I had wasted enough time in my stubborn insistence that I could conquer these little beasts.

I made one last attempt. I tried a different approach, and it worked!




So if any of you women or men out there get the urge for big false eyelashes, pay the $40 bucks, it might be worth your sanity.

NOT that I'm condoning this kind of behavior.

Except for Johnny Depp.

The big hair is next.



*Seinfeld, for those of you too young to remember.