Faking It: Fat Lashes

My name is Diana, and I’m a mascara junkie. In addition to touching up my Almay retractable eyeliner numerous times a day, my purse always holds an eyelash curler and a tube of my mascara-of-the-month.

I am not one of those classic Maybelline Great Lash girls. When I shop for a new mascara, I pick up whichever package has the most exciting adjectives (Volum’ Express Turbo Boost!) and lofty promises (“Visibly lengthens by 40% Volumizes up to 4X!).

And yet, despite all my efforts and the naturally thick, dark lashes I start with, I can never quite achieve that flirty, heavy eyelash fringe I was seeking. I don’t envy celebrity bodies—I envy their lashes.

But here’s a secret: there’s no celebrity eyelash gene that gives them those fat lashes with not a trace of mascara gunk in sight. So, what do celebrities have that we don’t? Well, among other things—money to burn. And sometimes, that money goes into eyelash extensions.

Often made of real human hair or silk, eyelash extensions are quickly becoming a staple in salons across the country. And these are hardly the drugstore fakes that you pick up for your sexy librarian/nurse/elf/whatever Halloween costume.

Each individual lash is applied one by one to your real lashes, avoiding that “I have a small spider resting on top of my eyelid” look that fake eyelash strips give you. The lashes come in a variety of lengths, so you can choose to look sex-kittenish or just impossibly fresh-faced.

The initial set will cost at least a few hundred dollars, and touch-ups every two weeks will run you up to $100. And since the fake lashes will fall out naturally over the course of 4-6 weeks, you may be shelling out up to $800 every six weeks—a bit steep if your idea of splurging is blowing $23 on Lancome’s High Definition Mascara.

But really–isn’t that a small price to pay to look refreshed and doe-eyed on your walk of shame, free of mascara smudged down to your chin?