Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992 TAG: 9203180281
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCINE PARNES ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
These fabulous fakes are a mainstay of the mega-model's makeup bag. They're great for filling in light-colored or sparse lashes and just plain fun to wear.
"Just about every model wears false eyelashes and looks vampy and wonderful," says Linda Wells, editor-in-chief of Allure magazine. "So why should you be stuck with your anemic eyelashes?"
Carnaby Street revisited, they're not.
What's making news now, says makeup artist Stan Campbell Place, is a high-tech generation of faux fringe that's thinner, lighter and softer than the wildly exaggerated impostors of Twiggy's era.
"The lashes have not actually become easier to put on - they're applied the same way as in the '60s - but the difference is in the lashes themselves," says Place, a Maybelline consultant in Columbus, Ohio. Fewer hairs are attached to the base, so it's a more natural look. And this time around they're more flexible, more discreet and more comfortable.
Made of human hair or synthetic fiber, fake lashes are packaged with a little tube of adhesive. You'll pay about $6 a pair for either a full strip or little clumps to attach a few hairs at a time with tweezers.
"If the whole strip is too Joan Collins for your taste," Wells says, "individual clusters of lashes work well. You have the option of sticking them on at the outer corner of your upper eyelids, which is a slightly more subtle approach."
False lashes were originally created by makeup artist Max Factor in 1919 for a starlet named Phyllis Haver. They were popularized by Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Hepburn in the 1930s and got a big wink from Lucille Ball in the 1950s.
But it was in the psychedelic '60s that fake lashes enjoyed their heyday. Typically made of neon-colored mink or sable and combined with rhinestones and glitter, they were obviously, outrageously phony.
Today, Wells says, "they go along with the current ultra-femininity in fashion . . . curvy dresses, long hair, full pouty lips."
But they're not for every occasion.
"They look really ridiculous in the office because they're so exaggerated," Wells says. "They're meant to be a little bit of frippery for a major black tie night."
When you go heavy on the lashes, go light on the makeup, she says, to avoid looking like a drag queen.
To track down a pair, you might have to scour the back shelves of the corner drug store. Current revival notwithstanding, neither Max Factor nor Revlon makes them anymore.
But Maybelline hasn't missed a beat since 1965, when it introduced lashes made of real hair. Updated for the '90s in nylon, they're $4.75 a set and come in three lengths and thicknesses, all in black. Sales for 1991 were up 20 percent over 1990.
Merle Norman also has been cranking out fake lashes all along and has repositioned them for the 1990s.
"We don't call them false eyelashes anymore. We call them extra lashes because it sounds more professional," says Jolene Moser, manager of a Merle Norman store in Denver. They're $6.50 a pair in black or brown.
But the real eye-openers are from Bust & Move Adventures, a trendy San Francisco company that offers long sweeps in electric blue, bubble gum pink, silver and black. They're aptly called Lalapaloozas and cost $5 a pair.
"They make you feel really flirty and feminine," says Ali Ferber, co-owner of Bust & Move. "First we saw the fad in underground clubs. Then the trickle-down theory set in, and we started seeing it mass-market on the street in the middle of the day."
They've sold more than a quarter-million pairs since they were introduced last summer, Ferber says.
by CNB