Strip lashes

A strip lash is a whole fringe made in one piece: fibres knotted or fused to a fine band, trimmed to the width of the eye and glued along the base of the natural lashes. It is the quickest way to change the shape of an eye for an evening and the easiest to undo, since the band peels away at the end of the day, and a pair that is looked after can be cleaned and worn again.

It sits between two neighbours. Cluster lashes are the same fibres made as small bunches and placed one at a time, which blends more easily but takes longer. Salon extensions are single fibres bonded to single natural lashes by a technician, and stay on for weeks. A strip does the whole lash line in one movement, and its band is both its convenience and the thing to judge it by.

Start with the band. A thick black band reads as eyeliner and hides the join, which is why dramatic styles use it; a thin, flexible or clear band disappears into the lash line and bends with the lid, which suits natural styles and first attempts. Some strips arrive with their adhesive already on the band, and a few are held by tiny magnets against a magnetic eyeliner instead of glue.

Then shape. Natural and wispy styles mix short and long fibres crossed at angles, as real lashes grow. Flared or cat-eye styles lengthen towards the outer corner and lift the eye outward, while full or 3D styles stack fibres for volume. Half and accent strips cover only the outer part of the eye, and are the forgiving way to begin. Most fibres are synthetic, sold as faux mink or silk; others are human hair, real mink or, lately, plant fibre. How many times a pair can be worn is the maker’s claim, and care decides most of it.

Hold the strip against the closed eye before anything else and trim it from the outer end, so that the band starts a little in from the inner corner and stops where your own lashes stop. Bend it gently into a curve so it meets the lid rather than springing off it. Run a thin line of glue along the band and wait about thirty seconds until it turns tacky: wet glue slides, tacky glue holds.

Look down into a mirror held below the face, set the middle of the strip first, as close to the roots of your own lashes as it will go, then press the ends into place. A line of liner hides the band, and mascara, where the maker allows it, marries the two sets of lashes. If a corner lifts after a few minutes, press it down again with the tip of the tweezers; a dot more glue at the corner works better than another coat along the whole band.

To take a strip off, hold it at the outer corner and peel it inward, never pulling at the fibres. Lift the dried glue from the band with tweezers, return the pair to its tray so it keeps its curve, and never share lashes. Throw away a pair that has lost its shape or made the eye itch. The FDA treats false eyelashes and their adhesives as cosmetics, reminds wearers that an allergic reaction or irritation around the delicate eyelid can be particularly troublesome, and advises stopping any eye product that causes irritation.^[1]

False lashes are older than the films usually credited with them. In the 1870s British newspapers reported that someone in France had found a way to fix false eyelashes, and by the 1880s that Parisians were having hair drawn through the eyelid with a needle. Hair glued to a backing strip was in use in Europe by then too, perhaps first on the stage.^[2] Around 1903 the London hairdresser Charles Nessler, better known for the permanent wave, sold boxed pairs of human hair fixed to a strip of “fish-skin”, isinglass made from fish bladders.^[2] In 1911 Anna Taylor of Ottawa was granted a US patent for an “artificial eyelash”: a crescent of material, preferably transparent, with short hairs fixed along its curved edge and an adhesive spread across its underside.^[3]

The story most often told comes later. For Intolerance, in 1916, the director D. W. Griffith is said to have had his wigmaker glue lashes to the actress Seena Owen with spirit gum, and her fellow actress Lillian Gish later wrote that Owen arrived one morning with her eyes swollen nearly shut.^[4] It is a story about Hollywood rather than an invention: Griffith is only one of several people credited with the idea, along with Nessler, Taylor and the make-up artists George Westmore and Max Factor.^[2]

The modern strip is post-war. In 1947 the brothers Eric and David Aylott, film make-up artists, founded Eylure to sell lashes knotted on nylon thread. By 1954 they came ready trimmed on a curved plastic mount, a pack so widely copied that it became the standard, and self-adhesive lashes followed in 1963.^[5] By 1968 Americans were buying more than twenty million pairs a year, many of them made by Eylure for other houses, before production moved to South Korea and India.^[2]