GAAAH RETENTION ISSUES are the nightmare of every lash artist.

Somedays your clients get STELLAR retention and you are walking around like Queen Bee – feeling like the shiiz.

And then – something mysterious and unnerving happens. And you have NO friggin idea what!

And now your clients cant keep lashes on for more than a few days or even a few hours. I’ll be sharing some crucial tips on how troubleshooting your client’s poor retention may be 100% out of your control… but probably not in the way you’re thinking.

So let’s get to it!

Any of you ever have a client show up with a ziploc baggie full of your fallen fringe friends – demanding a refund or claiming they haven’t done anything different.

You both look at each other – confused, miffed, and perplexed.

Then – some of you turn to your fellow lash artists for commiseration and hopefully some trouble shooting – and if you’re doing so in any of those free lash forums – you’re likely getting a lot of “it’s the clients fault” and “she’s such a liar” and “she totally got them wet or didn’t follow aftercare.”

NONE of which is helpful or useful to you. And please understand that adhesive knowledge and training is a rarity in our industry. If you had any adhesive or retention troubleshooting in ANY lash training you’ve taken – you are the exception unfortunately… not the rule.

So I understand that at this point you start to freak out about how you can fix or control something that you don’t even know what caused this problem.

Cause let’s face it – if you can’t keep your client’s lashes on – ain’t nobody going to continue to
pay you to provide them any priced service if it doesn’t last.

And retention troubleshooting is one of those nasty beasts that could have 1.7 million causes that may or may not be within our control.

But understanding what you can control and what you can’t is the first step to admitting you have a problem, right?

CONTROLLING THE AC/HEAT

And if your landlord cannot or will not allow you that – then you need to get it in writing that the temp will not fluctuate beyond your stated range.

Some landlords are cheap – there’s no way around it. Some turn off all electric during closed hours which if it’s 100 degrees outside or 0 degrees, can change your environment to extreme temps that even if they turn
everything back on in the morning – your adhesive may still be coming up to an optimum temperature and not work for you AT ALL.

HUMIDITY CONTROL

Another aspect you need to be aware of is humidity and how much impact you can have on controlling your humidity. The beauty of the innovations of our industry is that there are adhesives for almost every humidity range so changing up your adhesive as seasonal fluctuations of humidity change is an easy thing to do. However it’s difficult when your humidity unexpectedly goes bezerk and you don’t have an adhesive that works in that range. That can get you into some real trouble.

My recommendation is think about how easy or challenging it would be for you to be able to control your humidity in your space.

There are humidifiers as well as dehumidifiers that you can purchase to increase or decrease your humidity to match what your adhesive likes… BUT if your lash space is in a large room – with other people – maybe other services going on – it may be damn near impossible to control the humidity at all much less have a large, noisy dehumidifier running disrupting other services.

Something to consider is the size of the space – and the cost of getting a humidifier or dehumidifier that can handle that size space.

The alternative would be to have multiple adhesives available for the fluctuations you may experience in your environment. You’ll need to determine which option is the most cost effective or just nix that location off of your list and find one that’s smaller.

HAIR SALONS

One thing you CANNOT CONTROL – and trust me – I’ve spoken with many a lash adhesive supplier on any work arounds for this and as far as I know – there’s nothing the lash artists can do – is the exposure of the adhesive to Ammonia – a chemical in some hair dyes and perm solution.

So if you are at all considering working inside of a hair salon or you work inside of a hair salon currently and you cannot for the life of you fix your retention issues, it might be out of your control because the adhesive is being exposed to ammonia and that will wreak all sorts of havoc on your adhesive’s ability to perform the way you want.

My suggestion for you – ask if the airspace of your lash space is shared with where the hair colors and perm solutions are mixed or applied. This might be a big red flag if its a shared airspace.

I would add a clause in your lease that if you struggle with retention issues and there’s no resolve thru normal troubleshooting, that you can break your lease as you wont be able to sustain a business that can’t keep lashes on clients due to the adhesive’s ammonia exposure.

Retention is a multi-faceted beast but it is possible to understand the scientific
process our adhesive goes thru really really well.

And that starts with setting yourself up for success in trying to eliminate your environment as a contributing factor of poor retention. If you cannot control your adhesives curing process, no matter how good your customer service, application, or marketing is for your business – it’ll be like pouring water into a leaky bucket.

You’ll get nowhere real fast and continue to stress and struggle and lose clients.

Download our commercial lease questionnaire to know what questions you need to have answered before ever signing any lease or agreement. I go more into detail about a lot of other factors you need to consider when it comes to renting out a location to ensure you’re set up for success. You can download this questionnaire at www.thelashpreneur.com/LeaseQuestions. 

Happy business building!

Have a good one!

Tara Walsh 

The Lashpreneur