Longer lashes: extensions enhance, add sass and definition

CEDAR HILLS — Ann Nixon said she wasn't afraid to lie on a couch with Amelia Meneses wielding a long pair of tweezers above her eyes, gluing synthetic hairs to her original eyelashes.

She just wanted to look good at the end of the three-hour session.

"I don't need it to look fake," Nixon said. "I want it to look natural."

When Nixon was a teenager she had a medical condition that caused hair loss, and she's been self-conscious since about her skimpy eyelashes.

"When I heard about this, I was really excited," she said. "I'm getting the sassy set, not the full set, so it won't be a huge change."

Meneses and her partner, Linda Bledsoe, assure her the new eyelashes won't look phony. They'll simply enhance her appearance by making her eyes look more open and more defined.

"We've had good experiences with the eyelash-challenged. We've worked with a lot of different people. One lady had her lashes singed off in a fire. We've had cancer survivors. Amelia and I are both redheads, so we have light eyelashes you can't see. We've done each other's," Bledsoe said. "We love it. You don't have to worry anymore about mascara. You just get up with these gorgeous lashes."

Customers who come to an eyelash extension service pay about $200 for a full set of lashes — 80-120 individual hairs — that are painstakingly attached to real eyelashes.

Touch-ups are done about once a month for $45.

Outside of Utah, the price is much higher, Meneses said, between $300 and $600 for a full set of eyelashes.

"Ladies can go everything from a sassy set to really glamorous," Bledsoe said, "from busy housewives with no time for daily maintenance to girls headed to the prom or a bride who doesn't want to worry about crying on her wedding day."

Meneses and Bledsoe have two studios — one in Cedar Hills at the Meneses' home and another in Provo at 363 N. University Ave., Suite 108-A.

They opened in September and already have a loyal client base from high school-age girls to great-grandmothers.

They can do lashes in brown and black and order in other colors on request. They work with three different sizes and pride themselves on offering quality, safe work.

"We don't do clusters, for instance, because they tend to pull out the natural lashes," Bledsoe said.

They use a special, quality adhesive and a special dryer.

They're adamant about training.

"We're trained and certified. You don't want to do this yourself or go to someone who doesn't know what they're doing," Bledsoe said.

"It's really important to be certified," Meneses said. "You want everything sanitized, for instance."

Eyelash extensions originated in Asia and have been available in the United States for the past couple of years, but demand for extensions is growing.

"It's like an art form," Bledsoe said.

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E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com

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