Why are my client's eyelash extensions not bonding as well in hot weather?
The eyelash glue takes 24 hours to fully cure and needs the environment to be correct to do this. It’s a chemical reaction with moisture in the air. If it’s an extremely warm day the glue can cure too quickly causing the adhesive not to perform correctly. The Cyanoacrylate based glue becomes brittle as the chemical reaction hardens it too quickly causing the extensions to bing off the following day. If you live in a hot country I would advise investing in air-con.
The humidity also plays an important part in this. If it’s too humid (over 55%) then the glue cures too quickly often called ‘boom’ and turns the glue white, if it’s too dry (under 45%) the reaction is too slow. Check with a hygrometer and adjust the room's humidity with a humidifier or dehumidifier.
45 - 55 % humidity, and 20 – 22 degrees Celsius
Timing
The glue is dry within 3-4 seconds due to the small amount used in bonding eyelash extensions to natural lashes. This varies slightly from glue to glue. Just remember that the glue isn’t fully hardened until 24 hours, so remember to tell your clients no saunas or hot yoga after their treatment! I always give my clients an A4 sheet of aftercare to follow.
Reschedule
Sometimes in extremely warm weather, it really is best to reschedule your client’s appointment.
Not just the beauty salons!
Having a chat with a hairdresser this week they have spoken about closing the salon for hair colouring and just doing cuts, as the colour is taking too quickly and the processing time is too unpredictable for the correct result.
Starting up a beauty salon
Business plan for setting up a home-based beauty salon.
Obviously, if you are planning on opening a large spa or beauty salon with employed staff members you will have a lot more to consider. This blog post is aimed more at small home-based beauty salon startups.
Get yourself a spreadsheet and work out your start-up costs. Have a very good think about what you really need. You don't need 300 nail polishes and the most expensive beauty couch! There are great companies like NWES to help people write business plans. At the moment they offer free courses for you to attend. However, I believe NWES is funded by the EU, so I’m not sure how long this will continue.
Logo, branding and website
Get this right from the start when starting up a beauty salon. It's a good idea to spend a little bit of time on this. Have a good think about branding colours, fonts etc. Remember to Google the business name you pick to make sure it's not been copyrighted or overused. My husband was a software engineer for 15 years and he creates beautiful websites. He has some great packages on websites for small businesses. Aperature design. Aperture Design can help figure out exactly what you need from your business. If you have a small budget for a logo I recommend canva. Canva is really easy to use and, for free, you can get a low res logo. When picking colours, chat to your art and design friends. They will know what colours compliment each other.
Register with HRMC
Call up HRMC and register your new beauty salon business. They are super friendly and extremely helpful. They are there to help you. Don't believe things your friends tell you that you can put through the books as expenses. Always check on the HMRC website. It's very clear, take your time to have a really good read. There are many sections about being self employed and it is worth ensuring that you fully understand it. If there is anything that you are not sure about - then call them. You can even tweet HMRC and ask them questions on their twitter feed! You can claim for laundry and household bills, but obviously not the whole bill. Just a percentage! If you claim for things that aren't true expenses this is a form of tax dodging! Same as 'cash in hand'. Just declare what you earn. Paying taxes is what keeps our schools free and our National Health Service running. Plus, you will sleep better at night knowing you are doing things correctly. Well, I do!
Spreadsheet or accounts software?
How to sharpen your own eyelash or brow tweezers at home
Tweezers not plucking out hairs anymore
Dilemma
After a while I find my tweezers lose their grip and it drives me insane! I'll try and pluck an eyebrow hair out and the hair will just slide between the slates. Then you are left with two options: buy new tweezers or sharpen them. Some companies will do this for you, but I prefer doing it myself to get them perfect! Tweezerman offers this service, but only in the USA. Tweezers not plucking out hairs is a big problem.
Solution
At my beauty salon, I prepare all my tweezers ready. I grip tweezers onto a sheet of sandpaper and pull the tweezers overs the sandpaper, if you are doing this correctly the tweezers will leave a mark on the sandpaper. The first couple of strokes won't be uniform and look patchy. Personally, I use 220 grit for sharpening my tweezers. After doing this 20 odd times or however many needed you will notice the mark left on sandpaper is more even. Hope this makes sense! Not the easiest to describe in words. I do this under my LED magnifier light. My mag light is 5 x zoom, so great for seeing the grip between the tweezers. If the tweezers aren't gripping the hairs you will notice visible light between the two slates of the tweezers. The aim is to see no light between the slates or any imperfections. Keep checking under the mag light as you sharpen your tweezers every couple of strokes against the paper. Hopefully, the images below will clear up any confusion about what I am trying to explain!
If the tweezers are really awful I would start with roughest grit sandpaper and slowly work down the numbers. So 80 grit, 150 grit, finishing with 220 grit. You will file the metal perfect, but it can sometimes take a while!
Sandpaper
40-80 grit - roughest
100-150 medium
180-220 - finest
Result
After lots of sanding of the tweezers, the result will be stress-free eyebrow shaping or eyelash extensions appointments! Where the tweezers grip the hair every time and remove it from the root or picking up those perfect volume eyelash extensions fans. Tweezers not plucking out the hairs can cause massive stress.
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Eye twitching during eyelash extension application
How to prevent eyes twitching during eyelash extensions application?
This week I had a very excited client come in to have her eyelash extensions infilled. She was super hyped up as her eyelash extensions she had in were over 4 weeks old and desperately needed topping up. She had them done in London at the beauty show and now wants to continue wearing them. She decided to come to me as I am local to her.
I am part of quite a few facebook support groups for eyelash extensions and had 'banked' a few ideas, but never needed to use them before as I can normally calm the client down before starting. I normally slowly rub the temples on the side of the head and get them to concentrate on their breathing. However, I could feel nothing was going to calm this lady down that quickly. Note to clients: avoid caffeine before your appointment hehe!Read more