We all know the struggles of being a broke college girl. The money we make goes to makeup, clothes and our various beauty adventures. Unfortunately, these beauty adventures aren’t usually cheap. My latest desire has been to get a lash lift, but the prices can be anywhere from $70 to $100 for it, and you have to get it done every month or so. On top of nails, hair and waxing prices, I wasn’t eager to spend some extra money if I didn’t have to. I put the lash lift idea on the chopping block, and decided I would just stick to curling my lashes and putting on mascara every morning (which is a good 10-minute ordeal), until I saw a glorious TikTok where a girl did an at-home lash lift, which turned out amazing.
A few more of these videos popped up on my FYP, so naturally, I was influenced. I threw my money at Amazon to get this $25 lash lift kit, which had the most and the best reviews I could find. From reading the reviews, most people said that the glue included in the kit wasn’t very good, and it’s worth it to pick up some other lash glue to use. To be honest, I had no idea what the glue was for because I’m unfamiliar with the whole lash lift idea, but I wanted to be well-prepared for my first lash lift. I ended up grabbing a tube of the Duo lash glue; it’s my tried and true for falsies so I figured it would be good for this, too.
When my kit came and I opened it up, I was definitely a little overwhelmed. There’s a lot of items shoved into one little box, and I didn’t really know where to start. Obviously, I read through the instructions and got everything prepared for my lift. I started with washing my face and thoroughly cleaning my lashes of any leftover mascara. The instructions said to apply the barrier cream and under-eye pad first. It didn’t say where to put the barrier cream other than around the surrounding areas, so I put it under my eye and right below my eyebrow.
Once that was done, I went ahead to start gluing the eyelid pad down (which is what that glue is for!) so I could begin the lifting process. What I didn’t realize was that the barrier cream was going to mess the glue process up. Since the barrier cream is pretty much just petroleum jelly, it didn’t let the glue stick properly to my eyelid. Luckily, I went one eye at a time, so for the second eye, the glue process was a lot smoother. I would definitely recommend not using the barrier cream at all. It was a huge pain to try to get the glue to stick onto the barrier cream, and for some reason, I didn’t think to wash it off at this point, so I just kept fiddling with it the whole time.
Aside from my personal beef with the barrier cream, the actual perming process went well. It can be a bit tricky to glue your lashes onto the pad if you’re doing this by yourself but after getting it down it isn’t too bad. By the time I did the second eye, I had no issues gluing them up.
There’s two ‘processing’ parts to this kit: the perming solution and the fixation solution. I couldn’t tell you what the difference is, but they work the same way. The perm solution goes on first and you’ll put some plastic wrap on top of the lashes while you let it do its work for 5 to 10 minutes. I went for 10 minutes, just to be safe. After this, you don’t wash the perm solution off and go in with the fixation solution. This has the same idea, where you wrap it then let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes.
Where I messed up (for the second time) was on my second eye. I got a little too invested in my YouTube video and forgot how long I had the solutions on, and apparently however long I did it wasn’t long enough.
After the two solutions, you clean it up with their glue remover. Finally, you’ll brush the nutrition serum onto your lashes and prevent them from getting wet in the first 24 hours. The first eye I did turned out great, aside from one or two lashes that escaped my torture. The second one…well, the unknown time I had the solution on was definitely not enough like I mentioned before, so they didn’t curl very much. User error, for sure, but I would keep timers going while you perm just to be safe.
Getting the glue off is kind of annoying because it was all over my eyelids at this point. I woke up with some glue remains, and since I had messed up my second eye, I decided to just wash my lashes to get the glue off and hopefully reset my lashes to their natural state.
Let me tell you, though: that kit works! It’s been about a week since I initially tried the kit and the eye that turned out well is still holding on. Even with being washed prematurely and wearing mascara every day, it’s still significantly more curled than my other eye.
I’m definitely going to be doing this again, though, and hopefully with a bit more success. Overall, the process only took around an hour and a half for both eyes, and I imagine it speeds up more as you get used to doing it. The proper results are very pretty. Pairing it with a lash dye would be a great way to avoid doing mascara at all in the mornings. This was a win in my book, even if I messed it up. Another day, another DIY slay.