#BEAUTYFAIL

Sometimes a treatment can go horribly wrong; five women on their cosmetic horror stories

Lash out ‘She told me that she had messed them up and couldn’t fix it.’

About a year ago I went for a lash fill and the technician who usually does them wasn’t available, so I decided to just book someone else.

If you’ve ever had lash extensions, you’ll know that they tape your bottom lashes down and your eyes are closed throughout the process, so you only see the results at the end. The tech went about filling my right eyelashes first. After about 30 minutes, she told me she was done with that side, but that she had messed them up and couldn’t fix it. She recommended I just soak them all off. I asked her if she was sure (I couldn’t see what was happening), and she said yes. I was annoyed, but what could I do? I said, ‘Go ahead’.

As soon as she applied the soak-off solution, my eyes started burning as though they were on fire. I actually thought I was going to go blind, I was in so much pain. I begged her to remove the solution and, after calming me down, she sprayed water over my eyes to remove it. I told her that I didn’t think the soak-off was working. She apologised, admitting that she had forgotten to place a moist cotton strip beneath the lashes; instead, she’d put the soak-off solution directly onto my eyes.

But we still had to finish the soak-off, so I steeled myself and she got back to it. I felt like I was stuck in a nightmare: I was in pain and completely in the dark about what was actually going on. It also hurt every time she pulled off a lash. As I usually just let my false lashes fall out by themselves (lashes have a natural shedding cycle), I assumed this must be normal. I mean, what

more could go wrong? Finally the torture was over and I headed to the mirror. To my horror, I saw that she had also plucked out my natural lashes.

I felt like crying. If I hadn’t been in a rush to get back to work I would have complained immediately, but instead I kept my cool, even when I was instructed to pay for the disastrous soak-off!

Two days later, I called the branch to complain and was told that the owner would get back to me, which took some time, just saying … But they made it up to me by giving me a RapidLash product, which I never used. My lashes grew back naturally after a couple of months. Of course, I never got lash extensions again, though I’ve now got stuck on falsies. They’re much safer and cheaper.

I thought I was going to go blind!