If you had told me a year ago that I’d be regularly slotting a session with an eyelash technician into my grooming schedule, I’d have done the polite version of laughing in your face. A gentle flexing of my delicately arched brows perhaps. How time consuming. How high maintenance. How drag queen-y. And by the way, I didn’t have a grooming schedule as such. Wrong, on at least one of those counts. Aforementioned eyelash technician has cumulatively saved me hours in the morning.  Sara doesn’t actually call herself an eyelash technician. A former primary school art teacher in her native Iran, she’s far too sensible for that. But she is highly technical in her methodology – agile, fast, fleeting of touch. And eyelashes are her stock in trade. But also eyebrows, which are what first brought us together at the Harvey Nichol’s Blink – the brow bar chain that has become an indispensable pit-stop for thousands of women, me included.  What did we do before threading became mainstream? It’s not that a hirsute brow looks bad per se. Brook Shields in Pretty Baby? As hairy and delectable as a peach. But one reaches a certain age – or rather one’s face does, because the spirit refuses to catch up – and one needs a little lift. That’s what an arched brow does. So you see, I did have a grooming schedule.  And once one has acquired one of those, one becomes more ambitious. Why not some luxurious topiary to complement the manicured lawns? Except that the last time I’d tried fake lashes, a few years ago, they were hard and spiky like porcupine bristles, and hurt like hell if they got into your eyes – a bit of an occupational hazard what with them being so close to the eyeball. And they did make me look like a drag queen. But hell, time moves on. And we must move with it.  The first time Sara gave me Bambi eyes, it was for some big do where there would be cameras and red carpets. Even though, as Nanny always says, no one would be looking at me, I wanted help. That initial session, Sara applied a full set of the “naturals” – two rows along the top lid of soft, single lashes, about a 150 of them in total. It took her an hour – I’ve been with other less technically proficient techies who’ve been 50 per cent slower – long enough to hear five chapters of Bleak House on my iPod. The upshot, Sara promised, was that they would last for at least three weeks provided I did as I was told. I should avoid using oily make-up removers, desist from rubbing my eyes too much and not get them wet for the first 24 hours.  Who needs make-up remover when you hardly need eye make-up? With my amplified lashes, I could be out of the door in the morning in seconds if need be. No fiddling around with kohl or liner or any of the other life-long tricks of my trade. A sweep of shadow if there was time, and I was done. I looked younger, fresher, more awake – and would never be cowed by the Cloggy Mascara brush again.  Two weeks later I was back. 50 per cent of Sara’s handiwork was still in place, but I needed re-enforcements, or what Blink refers to as infills. In the long run, it was more cost effective I told myself. A full set costs £150. Infills start from £40, so instead of waiting for them all to drop out…  And so a habit was seeded. Every two to three weeks I’d nip into Sara and get my brows and lashes tended (I prefer seeing her at the Fenwick’s branch of Blink on Bond Street, where there is a private room and a flat bed for our trysts). I could be in and out in 60 minutes and no one was any the wiser: completely natural looking fakes. Only those who knew me very well ever asked if I’d been “getting help”. The next question was where could they get some too.  Eight months later, I’m on a break. Sara recommends going on a glue-detox every six months for a couple of weeks or so to give your own lashes a breather. Boy, do I miss my little friends. My eyes look diminished and mascara feels so primitive now. Stoically however, I’m taking the medicine – literally. A friend has given me some RevitaLash which, she swears, is the serum responsible for her fake looking naturals. We’ll see. But for now, I can’t wait ‘til my detox is up.
Think you're not one for false eyelashes? Neither did Lisa Armstrong, until she discovered Blink. Now she's hooked