Mascara Week- The Tools!

In order to be truly serious about having massively thick and long eyelashes, you need the right tools. Namely, you have to have an eyelash curler, and a metal comb.

Every girl has to have an eyelash curler. Truly, if you don't have one, you are doing yourself a disservice! Using an eyelash curler before applying your mascara will dramatically alter how your lashes look once the mascara is on. The eye will look much larger and more open with curled lashes.

While perhaps the "best known" of the eyelash curlers is this version by Shu Uemura, there are many versions of this available at your local drugstore for $5 that I think work just as well. When applied, I prefer to crimp my lashes in at least 2-3 places: at the base of the lash, halfway up the shaft of the lash and sometimes at the very tip of the lash if I'm feeling sassy! Use the curler only on clean lashes (using it on lashes with mascara already applied will just clump your mascara and break your lashes), and crimp for abot 5-10 seconds before gently releasing. I get enough hold with a good mascara, but I know that some girls find their lashes just as straight as before about an hour after curling. To help with this issue, you can heat up your curler first. Hitting the curler with a blow dryer for just a few seconds will warm it up (don't let it get hot, the last thing you want to do is accidentally burn your eyelid!), and when using a warm curler you only need to crimp for about 5 seconds.

An alternative to warming up your eyelash curler is to buy a heated curler instead. I have had this curler from Sephora for a year or two, and I'd say it works "ok." It is powered by a single battery, and when turned on the little comb does heat up. You are meant to put your lashes in it an hold the curler up so your lashes are in the position you'd like them. Honestly, it doesn't really curl very much though what curl you get does last longer.

Really, the metal comb is essential (and it's the thing that Tammy Faye was most definitely missing), and very few gals own one! I bought mine at Target (from the Sonia Kashuk line) about 4 years ago. I love it, can't live without it, and if it broke I thought I was up a river without a paddle, because I haven't seen them in stores (anywhere, not just Target) since that day I bought mine.

How exactly do you use this thing? I simply use it to comb out my lashes if they get clumpy from applying mascara. That's it. I will selectively comb those areas, spreading out the clumps results in much thicker looking lashes. Once I'm done I do wash the comb each day (I use a nail brush and let it dry on the counter, without cleaning the comb gets very junky very fast). I truly do think that a metal comb is essential, the plastic combs that you find in most stores do not have tines small enough to really unclump lashes.

Well, it does turn out that the combs are getting much easier to find in stores, here are a few options:

The Sephora Professionnel Platinum Lash & Eyebrow Comb #21 has 2 sides, one with your metal comb and the other with a brush to tame your brows! Truthfully though, since I was my brush nearly everyday, I do think that an ideal brush would be metal alone.

So, while it is $6 more expensive, I do think that the Vincent Longo #2 Lash Definer Brush is going to be a better fit. The metal brush is alone (no eyebrow brush to get gross) and it has nice long, thin teeth to really help you comb your lashes apart.

Images- Sephora.com