Don’t snicker, it’s true! Lashes are the boob job of the new millennium. Everyone wants bigger, darker, longer, thicker, and sexier lashes. That come-hither look that’s sported by starlets like Hayden Panettiere and Liv Tyler doesn’t come without a little assistance. So how do you get the eye lashes that your best friends will envy? Well that’s the easy part.

Longer, Thicker, Fuller Lashes

Stars like Hayden Panettiere owe their lashes to lash growing solutions like Revitalash that grow your own lashes thicker, longer, and add natural curl. With just a swipe a night anyone can have the lashes they dream of. And at only $150 a tube it’s far more cost effective than spending $200-$500 for lash extensions every month that need special care!

How They Work

Products like Revitalash use glaucoma medication as a means to stimulate growth. The medication has been approved and tested by the FDA to help glaucoma sufferers. One of the benefits discovered from people using the medication was eyelash stimulation! Companies like Revitalash use the active ingredient from the glaucoma medications and mix it with conditioning solutions to help not only stimulate growth, but improve the lashes. No matter how brittle, fine, or short your existing lashes are, conditioning and stimulation will help them look better in a month.

Safety First

Not all eyelash growing solutions are created equal. I trust Revitalash since it was created by an eye doctor for his wife who lost her lashes to cancer, but if you are looking at another brand you need to do your own research. What I do know, is that most solutions are safe, and that the active ingredient has been approved by the FDA for use in the eye.

What You Need To Know

Lash growing solutions take about 30 days to see results, but many people tell me they see a difference after 2 weeks. A single tube of Revitalash will give the average person about 3 months of use. Many people get their lashes to the thickness and length they want then back down to using the solution only 3-4x a week to maintain the lashes.

If you stop using Revitalash your lashes will not fall out! They will probably go back to the way they were before you started using the solution, but you won’t be bald. Also, people should realize that when you are stimulating faster hair growth, you are speeding up the hair cycle. This means when you first start using Revitalash you will probably notice more eyelashes falling out. This is because you are “shedding” your old lashes faster to make room for the new ones.

Darker and Fuller

A darker eyelash not only creates the illusion of a fuller lash, but also gives the lashes definition. You can use mascara to paint the lashes. If you chose this method I highly recommend “tubing” them instead with Blinc. Blinc creates a tube around the lash that gives the wearer the same benefits as water proof mascara, but without the damaging results. It also “plumps” the lashes, doesn’t smear, smudge, and actually helps condition the lashes…which we all know is vital to lash health!

You can also dye the lashes with a safe eyelash tint. There are many on the market, but only a few have been proven safe for they eye area. I personally use a vegetable based dye in either black or dark brown that is safe for they eye area and won’t blind anyone if it gets into the eye. Lash tinting runs about $25 and needs to be done once a month just like hair coloring. Most people want their lashes black, but trust your technician. I like dark brown on people who need to warm up their skin tone. Black is very cold, but dark brown which is almost black, will warm a blonde or redhead right up, making their eyes brighter and skin color richer.

Eye Brows

Interestingly enough…all the above statements can be used on the eyebrows as well, so if you are looking to get a thicker, fuller brow, speed up growth after over plucking, or want to tint your brow hair, you are seeking the same products and services!

So the number one eyebrow question I’ve been getting is on training your eyebrows. In an article I wrote Eyebrows Only, I touched on this, but let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what needs to happen.

Training your brows is easy, but it takes time and dedication. If you’ve ever had to train your hair to sit in a different part or hair style then you already know this. What many people don’t realize is that eyebrows are hair, and therefore can be trained like any other hair on the body.

The tools you need to train your brows depend on what problems you are working with. Gel is the most common tool used. Fancy eyebrow gels are on the market and many of them are great. My favorite is Brow Fix from Jane Iredale, but there is nothing wrong with using your regular hair gel for your brows. The only difference between the two is usually packaging, and eyebrow gels are proven safe for skin and eyes so you won’t get any breakouts or red eyes. If your eyebrow hair is really curly, course, or sticks straight out then you are going to need something more powerful to start with and eyebrow gel isn’t going to cut it. Get a firm hold gel, or a hairspray to hold the hair in place. You can also use a heated lash curler as a flat iron. Since the curler is designed for the lashes it won’t burn the skin, but it can help arrange and flatten wild brows.

An Eyebrow Brush is essential for everyone. I personally like the Spoolie versions which are like the brush in your mascara wand, but you can use one like in the picture at the top of this article. This tool is used to brush the brows and place them.

Growth solution like Revitalash, LiLash, or one of the many other lash growth solutions on the market. These will help grow brows faster, thicker, and help fill in holes. If the hair follicle is dead this type of product won’t help, but for many it’s just what they need to get those brows a growing!

Your finger is the final tool. You will need it to stroke, lay, and press your hairs into place.

Problems and Tools

Hair sticking up, curling, or not laying in place
Tools: Gel, Lash Curler, Brush, Finger
What to do: Using the brush decide how you want your hair to lay. Use a lash curler to heat them into place. Once that looks good, place gel or hairspray on your finger and apply it lightly to the brow hair. Use just enough to get the hair to stay in place. You can use the brush again to help lay them down once you’ve applied the gel or spray with your finger. Also, when you don’t have the gel on, you can use your finger to just gently smooth the hair into place. This will help it too.

Hair Not Growing
Tools: Growth solution, Finger
What to do: Use the growth solution on the area that needs help. REMEMBER that if you apply this solution it will grow in more hair and faster. That means if you took out all your brows and now are applying it to the entire brow area…well be sure you want hair in all the areas you are applying it! You also need to take your finger and rub over the area you want hair. Rubbing stimulates hair growth!

That’s it. Simple. Just remember, patience, diligence, and time.

To best understand what makes a product effective you need to be able to read a label. Anyone watching what they eat will tell you reading the labels allows them to know exactly what they are getting and make educated choices on what they put into their bodies. The main problem with reading skin care labels is that most of us know what partially hydrogenated soybean oil is, but we don’t know what Dimethicone 350 is and what it does. This makes reading skin care labels very difficult, but there are a few questions you should keep in mind:

• What are the Active Ingredients?
• What does this Active Ingredient do?
• Is there enough of the Active Ingredient in the product for it to work?
• Does the product’s formulation allow Active Ingredients to penetrate the skin?
• Do any of the inactive ingredients (the other stuff) interfere with the effect of the active ones? Do they have the potential to harm the skin, e. g. by causing allergic reactions, irritating or dehydrating the skin, clogging pores, etc.

Some of the above questions I will address in another part of this series, but much of the above info can be found in a product label if you know how to decipher it. I am not going to delve deeply into the FDA laws on labeling since they are complicated, and most cosmetic companies ignore them anyway, but I am going to give you a basic run down of how to read a label.

Breaking Down A Label

So lets start at the top. Active Ingredients. An Active ingredient is the substance that is pharmaceutically active. In other words, what makes the product work. We all want to effect changes in our skin and the only way to do that is to use products that have ingredients designed to target specific problems.

In this label the Active Ingredient is Salicylic Acid 0.5%.

The next part of the label is a laundry list of what makes up the product, including the Active Ingredient.

You might notice that Salicylic Acid is almost at the bottom of the ingredient list. This is completely normal. Most products are made up of water and other ingredients that create feel, smell, slip, color, and preservation. A good manufacturer will carefully chose these other ingredients to enhance the Active Ingredient and help get you the end result you seek, but many manufacturers use cheap filler substances to sell to your senses, or just plain trick you. My favorite example of this is menthol. A client will come in and tell me that they “feel” a product working. When I look at the label I discover that what they are feeling is menthol – a key ingredient of Vapor Rub – tingly on the skin. Trust me, it isn’t doing anything but making you “feel” like the product is working.

Although the US federal regulations require ingredients to be listed in descending order from most to least, the FDA doesn’t require that a distinction be made between active or inactive ingredients. Also, any ingredients with concentrations below 1% may be listed in any order the manufacturer sees fit. This means that the top third of the ingredients listed generally consist of around 80-90% of the entire product, the middle third represents around 5-8% of the product, and the bottom third represents 1-3% of the total product. Doing this math is easier than you think. Let’s work with the 22 ingredients in our sample product label. We take our 22 ingredients, divide them by 3, and get 7 1/3. So we can estimate that the first 7 ingredients make up 80-90% of the total volume of the product.

An easy trick for comparing products is to compare labels. Start by counting how many total ingredients are listed on each product. Try to chose products that have close to the same total number of ingredients. Then count down from the first ingredient until you reach your Active Ingredient. If you find your Active Ingredient listed as #8 on one product and #10 on the other product, then the #8 listing is the product that contains more of the Active Ingredient because it is closer to the top of the label. But remember that this trick is useless if the ingredient you seek falls into the bottom third or 1% of the label because these ingredients can be listed in any order.

Now that you have the basics of reading a label let’s learn to chose the correct ingredient with the correct amount of oomph!