Spa Iris: Eyelash Review

During the winter time, Lily and I planned to go to Barcelona together in the summer if I couldn't find an internship. We wanted to get our lashes done for the occasion so we bought a discount coupon at Spa Iris for 29$. However, I managed to find an internship at the last minute so I had to cancel our plans. Lily still decided to Europe so we rescheduled for as soon as she comes back.

Spa Iris

4055, rue Sainte-Catherine O, Westmount, QC H3Z 3J8

The Spa is in the basement of an office building and it definitely wasn't one of those higher end spas (which is why they offer discount coupons). The place looked pretty humble but they put effort into making it colorful and relaxing with nice paintings on the wall. The room where we had our lashes done was slightly messy in my opinion. The lashes were scattered on a trolley and it ressembled a dentist office. The lady was friendly but she didn't want me to take pictures of the lash-applying process so I only have before and after pictures.

The entire process took less than 30 minutes even though on the advertisement, one session is one hour. We are not allowed to talk during the session so it's super quiet and our stomachs kept making digestive noises (we had an iced coffee right before) : P

Lily went first and everything seemed fine, we were a bit nervous because I heard from a friend that sometimes the lash glue can stick to your bottom lashes. And indeed that is exactly what happened to Lily! It was so scary, like in those gory horror movies! Let me explain: when the lady finished applying the fake lashes to Lily, she asked Lily to open her eyes. But she couldn't cause her eyelashes glued to the bottom lid. Lily's eyes were twitching like crazy and it looked painful too! She managed to open her eyes a little bit but they glued back together and at that point, Lily was tearing! The lady then took the long pointy tweezer device and poked Lily in the eyes while Lily twitched of pain! Watching the whole thing made me so nervous that I turned bright red and I didn't want to get mine done anymore! When Lily finally managed to open her eyes, she was all teary ;___;. The lady didn't ask us if we wanted long or short lashes so Lily went with long ones by default. Unfortunately, Lily thought her lashes were too long (so they look spaced out) and she was a quite disappointed. The lady added a few more lashes to make it look fuller but because they are longer, they do not mix with Lily's natural lashes as well as the shorter ones would have.

When it came to my turn, I was a bit reluctant because I was afraid my eyes would get glued together too. Fortunately, only one eye glued and while the jabbing looked super scary when I saw it on Lily, it didn't hurt at all. Instead, it was the glued eyelashes that hurt. I started tearing so much that it looked like I bawled =P I'm not quite sure if it's normal but my friend Minji who got her eyelashes done also complained of the same thing (she got it done at another spa with a coupon too).

The final result (top: before, bottom: after):

I actually really liked my lashes!
My friend Minji got eyelash extensions that looked super natural and super nice and she recommended me to get short ones for a natural effect. When I said that I wanted short lashes, the lady asked me if I was sure in a condescending tone but I insisted. They still ended up looking longer and fuller than I expected. I was quite amazed with the result and I instantly felt prettier and girlier haha! Showering without wetting my lashes was quite a challenge. I had to hold my shower head and a towel while simultaneously bending backwards trying to spray only onto my hair... tchyeaaaa... and when I got soap in my eyes, oh goodness did that burn X___x

Lily's long lashes. They might not look incredibly long in pictures but they really stand out in real life!

Side view

2 weeks later:

I took really good care of my lashes and I followed all the instructions (do not wet your lashes after 24 hours, don't use oil-based make-up remover, don't rub your eyes, don't apply too much pressure etc.) but they started to look a bit weird after a few days : X 
When my first lash fell, I stared at it for a good 10 seconds. They look gigantic compared to my natural lash (which you can still see because the synthetic one is attached to the body of the real lash).

As you can see, the lashes started clumping and some of them curled in bizzare angles making my eyelashes look more sparse : X! Some of them even curled inwards, *NOES PLEASE DON'T POKE MY EYEBALL*! Lily told me that they used thick synthetic lashes to speed up the application process so they don't look as natural as the thinner ones. Also, because they are thicker, they clump in a weird fashion : C I guess you get what you pay for.

All in all, I definitely love having eyelash extensions because of the convenience and its effect but I wouldn't go back to Spa Iris. I'm curious to see how my eye will look like when there are only 3-4 lashes left on each eye LOL so I'll edit this post again in 2 weeks =P

STAY TUNED~~~

EDIT: July 28th

Only a few lashes sticking out like sore thumbs! It looks like I messily applied mascara only to a few of my eyelashes : PPPP