I have been reading a lot of comments in the Lash Tribe Group asking what shock curing is. They are a little bit confused and don’t know what it means, so I thought I’d jump on and explain what that is. When we have adhesive and we do our normal set of lashes, the things that we should avoid are the following:
- Too much watering of the client’s eyes
- Don’t use a nano-mister too close, if you can actually see a little bit curling of the lashes that means it’s too wet.
- We should also not wash the lashes as soons as you put the last lash extension on, you’ve got to wait a little bit.
- We also have to make sure that when we we wash our clients lashes at the very beginning, we don’t start lashing while it’s still completely wet. We need to dry the natural lashes.
All of these things are necessary because when we have too much moisture or the bond comes in contact with water too quickly it will have this effect called Shock Curing.
It is a process where the adhesive quickly hardens due to the levels of humidity or moisture surrounding the immediate area of the natural lash. This reaction can continue over the next few hours.
When we attach the natural lash and eyelash extension, the adhesive should be quite flexible. This ensures that necessary brushing doesn’t prematurely cause damage to the bond resulting in the extension to popping off or fracturing the bond in anyway.
The problem with shock curing is that when the adhesive gets wet straight away, you will make the bond between the natural lash and extension extremely fragile and brittle, and it will start to cure really quick, that’s why it’s called Shock Curing. The bond literally gets shocked!!!
Polymerization has effectively been disrupted and has now created a chemical reaction known as ‘Blooming’. Blooming can present itself as a coating of a white substance where the glue and moisture have come into contact.
If your client has watery eyes, there is a very high chance of this occurring. What I usually do with clients like this is, I tape a piece of tissue on the side or underneath their eyes so that the water can go straight onto that little piece of tissue. Just make sure that if you’re using a tissue, it stays away from the adhesive as it can react when these two come into contact. This is called an exothermic reaction that can cause a burning sensation near the client’s eyes.
When you are nebulizing or when you’re using your nanomister because your humidity might not be quite high enough, you should be at least 40 or 50 cm away from client. Just let the mist surround them rather than going really close to the client’s lashes.
Just let the mist surround them rather than going really close to the client’s lashes. Any form of liquid application, whether it is a lash bath or our very own Lash Tribe Set Me, needs to wait at least 3-5 minutes after you have completed the lash service before applying products. Don’t apply them right away because you will have the same thing happen.
So to wrap up, my Top Tips to avoid Shock Curing are:
Keep Clients Eyes Dry throughout the service
- Use your nano-mister 30-40cm away from the clients face Keep adhesive bond nice and flexible
- Wait 3-5 minutes after application before Lash Bath Use a setting solution such as Lash Tribe Set Me
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