I have been doing eyelash extension for 11 years full time and 3 years part time.
When I started as a lash technician, I had a glue designed for mid to high humidity.
Humidity was discussed constantly in forums. Everyone wanted to know how to monitor it so they could control it in their environment. The focus was everything you had to do so your room worked for your glue. Never was it discussed how to make your glue work for your room.
I would learn controlling humidity was a skill that only the most dedicated seem to master. I wanted to master it; I wanted my adhesive to have the best chance of working.
In trying to control my humidity I had a humidifier, dehumidifier and a hygrometer in every corner and right beside my lashing bed. My goal was to keep my humidity at a consistent 60% so I never had issues. Unfortunately, issues were all I had!
Some day’s my glue would work amazingly, and on my clients follow up visit they had great retention. But later that same day the weather changed and the fight was on to keep the humidity and temperature in the optimal range and even though I succeeded, on their follow up visit they had poor retention. I also noticed my clients would complain about fumes when they had never noticed fumes before. I learned later this was an important key.
Keeping the Humidity consistent was harder than I thought it would be. I figured if the humidity was low turn on the humidifier and if it was too high turn on the dehumidifier. Nice and simple, however, the hygrometers took time to change, so much that I would do a reset on my hygrometers weekly just to make sure they were reading correctly. The problem seemed to be that the humidity of a room couldn’t be instantly changed and may take hours before it reads differently.
Humidity inside could depend on outside factors I couldn’t control. Maybe my client was having a hot flash. Or someone was mopping up down the hall, or there was a large rainstorm outside with everyone coming in with wet clothes and shoes. How was I supposed to bring down a high humidity when moisture was constantly being added to the problem?
Winter didn’t make the issues any better. Where I’m from winter is very cold so it may say humidity outside is 85% but inside it is 20%. To keep warm, we are running the furnace which dry’s the air. Just like your dryer dry’s your clothes. When humidity inside is 20% increasing that to 60% is not an easy task especially when you have to keep running the furnace.
At this point, I decided I should try a new glue, one with a lower humidity range.
I began jumping back and forth with the glues, while ignoring the humidity reading. I would switch glues while working on the same eye sometimes multiple times during the appointment. Anytime I felt the glue was not curing quickly enough or curing too quickly I would switch glue. It became what I felt was a crutch, I was disappointed one glue couldn’t do it all, that one glue couldn’t be enough. I didn’t understand that what I though was a crutch was actually my ticket to humidity freedom.
There were little things that my subconscious or instinct saw, little things telling me when to switch glues. When I started to recognized these little things on a conscious level, I was shocked. Could it really be that easy? What I had been calling a crutch could actually set me free to never fear humidity again.
I fought for too long with different brands of glue hoping to find one glue that did it all. I was trying to decide which glue was better but it was never consistent enough to pick one brand over another. Once I accepted using more than one glue it made my life a lot easier. Instead of picking the one I thought would be best for the humidity in my room, I focused on those little signs that had been frustrating me. Once I did that I knew when to switch glues.
I was trying different glues with high and low humidity ranges, trying to find a perfect match, but even though they seemed to work some of the time the results still weren’t always consistent.
It was then OCEAN and DESERT came into my life; the results were so consistent that for the first time I was experiencing no humidity related issues.
I stopped paying attention to the temperature or humidity. Instead, I would start my day with OCEAN. I’d get through almost 3 clients before I felt slowed down, the glue wasn’t curing fast enough causing a sticky mess. I would switch to DESERT until the glue started drying too quickly causing them to fling off when brushed. I would switch anytime I felt frustrated with the glue. It is the biggest relief when the struggle ends and the lashing can begin again. Some days I would only have to switch once and sometimes I would have to switch multiple times.
It is hard to predict cause and effect. What may be a catalyst for throwing off your humidity one day may not affect it another day. So instead, I started to focus on problems I would face, problems that made what I was doing harder. Tracking the actual humidity wasn’t giving me the results I wanted. Focusing on problems was giving me fantastic results.
When starting out, my goal was to CHANGE THE HUMIDITY TO WORK FOR MY glue, but I found it was easier to CHANGE THE GLUE TO WORK WITH MY HUMIDITY.
I wish I could be more technical, and give you an exact temperature and humidity percentage that tells you the right time to use which glue but I gave up trying to monitor such things. Instead, I let instinct run free and started switching between OCEAN and DESERT.
OCEAN and DESERT have been manufactured to be identical but with one major difference. That difference is the Humidity range together OCEAN and DESERT cover an amazing humidity range of 20% to 90%.
I worked with other glues that said they covered the same humidity range but the results weren’t the same, they just weren’t consistent.
That is why the lazy lash glue guide was developed to work exclusively with DESERT and OCEAN. They work so perfectly together and my results are always so consistent.
When I started travelling to my client’s homes it became even more helpful that I had DESERT and OCEAN to choose from. I couldn’t predict the humidity of my client’s home and could you imagine dragging in a humidifier, dehumidifier etc. to try to control the humidity.
The road has been long and very stressful but I now do lash extensions with no fear of humidity or temperature. I don’t worry about my client’s retention because I have the best adhesives available, with amazing retention time.
The retention is so amazing, I did colored lashes on one of my clients and at her next fill she decided to go back to black lashes. On her forth appointment she still had colored lashes left. I was so surprised that I pulled her client card to see when I had done the colored lashes on her, to my shock it had been three months ago. It was then I discovered that the extension would stay on until they shed their natural lashes.
I would tell my clients if they feel they are shedding a lot of lashes to check the extensions that had fallen off to see if the natural lash was attached. My experience was that the natural lash was almost always attached and they were just going through a natural shed. A natural shed seems to happen in the spring and fall for most people.
You may recognize some things from your lashing experience or even have a new thing that lets you know when to switch from DESERT and OCEAN, if so, we would love to have you send us an email telling us all about it.
