Beauty tip #6: recreating lashes

I knew my chemo was going to cause my lashes to fall out, so I prepared myself. As my chemo started, I went to a beauty shop and bought myself 4 pairs of fake lashes. I watched several videos that made me feel it was super easy and I was almost an expert (lol). My bottom eyelashes went first... Not long after chemo started. Then after chemo number 4 I got to a point that I had 5 upper lashes! I could literally count them! I hated it initially as I thought everybody would stare at my 'bald' eyes. To my surprise, people only noticed (the lack of) lashes when I pointed it out. So don't panic! Having no or few lashes like me might feel terrible, but there are ways out of it. I learnt to disguise it with a few makeup tricks I will teach you below.

I have a gorgeous friend who is naturally blond, and thus has blond eyelashes. She usually doesn’t wear much makeup. When I told her that I was upset about losing my lashes, she told me the following story. One day she was going out with her husband and she decided to put some mascara on. Her husband smiled at her and said: “Wow you do have eyelashes”. This brings us to my first advice: don't put mascara if you only have a few lashes, or very short lashes, as it will highlight them and make their absence more obvious. Lash extensions unfortunately are not an option either as we need our natural lashes to support the extensions (this would result in your lashes falling out even quicker!).

If you lost all your lashes, there are two options that can be combined. The first is to wear fake lashes. I would suggest buying human hair ones as the will look and feel more natural. There are some brands that even come sterile especially for chemo patients (although after they are removed from the package they are not sterile anymore, so I am not sure if they are worth it the extra money). If you, like me, didn't have the habit of wearing fake lashes it might be very difficult to learn it when you have no lashes, as usually fake lashes will sit on the top of our natural lashes. I'm so bad at it! I might spend 30 min in each eye, ruin all my eye makeup, and still don't get it right. I got so upset once I gave up going out for dinner after a failed fake lash attempt. I've managed it okay in 3 occasions over 6 months, that's it. The rest of the time I gave up. But no regrets, as there are other ways to pretend you have lashes. If you can do it, go for it! I just wouldn't recommend wearing them every day as they are heavy and might make your eyes sore, and increase risk of infection or irritation. If you need some tips, Carly has a very good tutorial video here on how to put lashes when you have none.

In term of makeup tricks, I suggest 3 steps:

1- Put some nice eyeshadow or wear a nice, colourful lipstick. You want to take the attention away from the lashes.

2- Lashes contour our eyes. To fake top lashes, use a dark colour delineator. This will give some contouring for your eyes. You can even use some colour, I love wearing blue or green pencil (great for those with brown eyes like me) matching with my outfit! If you have blue or green eyes, try black or brown delineators.

3- Finish it by contouring the bottom bit of your eye to fake the bottom lashes. A delineator plus some dark eyeshadow on the outer corners will do the trick.

For the eyeshadow I recommend using at least 2 colours (but ideally 3: a light, a medium and a darker shade) and a very soft brush as our skin is quite delicate and sensitive. A blending brush is very useful too. Start by applying the medium shadow (marked as 1 in the picture). Then add the light shadow on the internal corner (marked as 2 – but this can be omitted if you want) and the darker shadow on the external corner and over the crease (marked as 3). Use the blending brush to make sure there is a smooth transition between colours (marked as 4).

If you have finished chemo (yay!) and you are desperate for some lashes regrowth, you can ask your doctor to prescribe you Latisse (Lumigan 0.03%), as it will make lashes and brows grow faster (check the photo from their website). This was initially used for glaucoma and was later found to increase growth of eyebrows and lashes. In Australia, you need a prescription for it. Remember to check with your medical team if it's indicated for your case.

While lashes are growing but have not yet reached full size, you can try to use a mascara with extra fibre that extend the lashes. I tried one at Mecca from Too Faced ‘Better than false lashes’ the other day and it's quite good (photo from before and after), but I'm not sure if I would wear it every day.

Finally, once chemo stopped my old lashes started to fall out, as if new lashes were pushing old ones out! Did anyone experience that too? I'm looking forward to some lash growth now, hopefully in time for Xmas!

Fran xx