How to apply individual lashes

Mascara is great for an everyday look of long, luscious lashes but when you have an event a set of false individual lashes will give you a long fluttery look that you just can’t beat, but how to apply them?

Heading to a professional for a set of eyelash extensions, much like the celebs like to indulge in, is, of course, the easiest, most indulgent option. But if your budget doesn’t stretch for that, a set of individual false lashes can achieve similar results for a much less expensive price tag. It’ll just take a little time, effort and patience on your half.

Try our guide to applying individual lashes and see if you can master the look for your next event.

Choose your tools

Individual lash clusters, which are small bulbs of three to five lashes each, tend to look more realistic than the full strips because you stick them only in sparse areas. Plus, when you wear strip lashes there’s a chance that the ends can come away, but if you lose one individual lash you can barely notice at all.

It’s important when shopping for individual lashes that you buy a product that includes a variety of lash lengths. This way you have a choice of lashes that could potentially match your own, and you can create a fluttery look that's made up of different lengths. Don't try and trim the length of the lashes, it's never going to look natural.

We love the Eylure Individual Lashes set, see the full review of the set below, you can buy them from Boots of Amazon, £5.66 and these will usually last around 2 applications.

When we apply individual lashes it’s generally just for the day, in place of a pair of strip lashes because they look more natural. For lash extensions that last a couple of weeks, we prefer to head to a professional.

Prepare the area and do your eye makeup

When doing makeup for a night out, we’ll always start with the eyes, especially if we wearing a smokey eye. It’s much easier to clean up the area around the eye if you haven’t applied foundation yet. Apply your concealer and create your eye look before you start to apply the lashes, even apply mascara before you apply them. If you try to apply afterward you’ll only end up tugging at the lashes and moving them from their original place.

Select which lashes you’ll apply

Once you’ve completed your eye makeup, use a tweezer to select how many of the lashes you’re going to apply for each eye. To create a more natural shape use a few from each row, small, medium and large. Put the lashes on a flat surface in front of you. This way you'll know how many lashes you still have to apply to each eye to create a more symmetrical look.

Work with the glue

If you buy the Eylure individual lashes these come with their own glue, that’s really good. But you could buy it separately if you have a particular preference. We suggest applying a small amount of glue to a piece of aluminium foil, so you can easily dot the eyelash into the glue and apply to your eye with ease. DUO Adhesive stands out as one of the best lash glues on the market.

Apply them

Individual lashes can be difficult to work with, so use tweezers to make things a little easier and get more precision.

Select one lash cluster and gently dip into the glue, leave for a couple of seconds for the glue to go tacky. Close your eye and apply the lash to your lash line, making sure the curl if following the natural curve of your lashes. We tend to start in the middle of the eye with the medium length lashes and work outwards with the longer ones. After that apply the shorter ones towards the inner corner of the eye. As you go make sure the lashes are following the natural curve of your lashes to create a natural fuller look.

You’ll generally have a minute or so to nudge the lash around and make sure the position is correct before the glue dries.

Creating a natural look

Space individual lashes sporadically between your natural lashes for more of a natural look.

Eylure Individual Lashes review

The Eylure Individual Lashes set is a combination of short, medium and long individual lashes to help you create a gorgeous, natural-looking fluttery eye. The flared lash inserts add fullness to your natural lashes are easy to work with and don’t feel heavy on the lashes at all, even when we apply more than we should.

What do you get in the set?

• 17 flares of short, medium and long length eyelashes
• Eyelash glue – which is really good, it’s really strong and keeps lashes in place
• Eyelash remover – ensure you don’t damage your natural lashes by using the remover to get the lashes off without any tugging

The Eylure Individual Lashes set is really good value for money, we generally find we get two applications out of the set, and the lashes look natural, fluttery and don’t weigh down the eyelid either.

If you remove them carefully enough and store them properly there’s no reason you can’t get more than one wear out of these lashes too.