4 Tips to Get Your Clients to Clean Their Lashes Between Touch Ups

It’s happened to every lash artist I know.

Client comes in with barely any lashes hanging on for their touch up and says, “I don’t know what happened… I haven’t done anything different. They just all fell out within the first week and I didn’t want to bug you about it.”

And once you put on your glasses and take a closer look at their lashes, you can clearly see eyeliner residue or leftover makeup, or leftover mascara that your client tried to clean off right before coming in.

If this hasn’t happened to you yet, trust me, it will at some point in your career once you work with enough people. I’m not sure I will ever understand the logic of clients not being truthful about what we can clearly see with our own eyes or worse, why they don’t follow our instructions in the first place when it comes to aftercare. I mean, if I bought a lambourghini, I would follow the instructions given to me by whoever sold it to me or the dealer because I recognize that I bought something of value and things of value need to be cared for in a very specific way. I wouldn’t just do my own thing or listen to the instructions of someone else.

So, how do you deal with this situation when it come up? And more importantly, what can you do to encourage your client to protect their investment and take care of their lash extensions? That’s what this week’s article is all about. Keep reading.

Maybe you gave your client a little aftercare kit with instructions on how to care for their lashes between their touch up appointments. Or maybe like me, you’ve added a dedicated aftercare page to your website and you send it to clients by email immediately ater their appointment. Regardless of how you communicate aftercare instructions to your client, you made sure they knew how to take care of their lashes before, during and after their appointment ended.

So why aren’t they taking care of their lashes?

The most common reason I’ve heard from clients is that they were afraid their lashes were so delicate that if they touched them, they would fall out. As lash artists, we know this isn’t true. We know that when clients DON’T touch their lashes, oils and dirt build up on their lashes, causing the extensions to shed faster than they would have if our client simply cleaned their lashes daily as instructed.

But how can we get your clients to understand this and keep their lashes clean?

The first approach I like to take is through education. The first time I work with a new client, I explain not just how they should clean their lashes, but WHY they SHOULD clean their lashes. I make it a point to mention blepharitis, pink eye and what other eye conditions could happen if there’s a build up of bacteria from not cleaning daily. Education is usually enough to encourage most clients to follow aftercare instructions but I continue that conversation after their appointment through follow up emails. Because of this, I’ve found that clients will come in for their touch up and want to talk about the information I sent them. They may even be surprised because they learned something new.

What’s great about the education approach is that it’s not pushy. Instead you come across as helpful and people are more likely to embrace rather than resist the information you’re sharing with them. You’re not forcing them to do anything by simply sharing information and educating them. So, educating your client is an easy first step to take to encourage clients to keep heir lashes clean and it’s the path with the least amount of resistance.

Even if you thoroughly educate your client on how to care for their lashes and make them aware of the negative effects they couldn experience by not cleaning their lashes, there are some clients that still won’t follow your instructions. If that happens and your client doesn’t clean their lashes, the next step you can take is to raise your prices. I know… this may sound a little harsh but I’ve learned that the more people pay for something, the more they value it.

Use me as your example.

Years ago, I stretched myself and paid several thousand dollars for a course. Since I spent so much money for it, I wanted to see a return on my investment FAST so I completed and implemented what I learned from that course faster than I ever had with any other course I’d taken. I was all in.

A few months later, I bought another course for a few hundred dollars and as a bonus, I received an additional course for free. Although the course and the bonus didn’t cost nearly as much as the course I’d bought months earlier, it was equally as valuable. But with the course that cost less, I didn’t have the same level of commitment as I did with the more expensive one. I just didn’t make it a priority to complete. And if I can be honest, I still haven’t finished the course that was free despite knowing how valuable it is.

I don’t share that example to say that you should charge several thousand dollars for a set of lashes, but what I AM saying is that if you charge a premium rate, you’ll find that clients tend to take better care of their lashes. When your clients see their lashes as a mini luxury investment, they’re more likely to clean their lashes without you having to nag them.

Another reason why you may beed to raise your price is because if you’re seeing a consistent issue of clients not cleaning their lashes between appointments, maybe your current pricing is attracting the wrong kind of clients that don’t really see the value in protecting their investment. If your prices are the same as everyone else in your area or lower, it’s harder for a client to see what you offer as any more valuable than what other artists are offering. Raising your price will separate you from other lash artists and you’ll be viewed as the leader in your area. So, by raising your price, clients that don’t value their lashes enough to follow aftercare instructions will either fall off and make room for higher quality clients OR those clients will start to see value in what they have and take better care of their lashes.

I’d like to add that even if you educate your client and charge the highest prices for your area, there will still be some clients that won’t clean their lashes. So when this happens, I’ve got a little trick that’s helped encourage clients to take better care of their lashes. And that is to only give your clients the time they pay for. This means, you don’t give them extra time for their appointments.

Admittedly, this is HARD. Especially if you’re the kind of artist that wants your work to look amazing everytime your client steps out of your studio. It can also be a challenge to implement based on your pricing structure and how you schedule touch ups.

Personally, I charge by time. Meaning, when my client books their appointment, they select a specific start time and their appointment is to last for a set amount of time like 45 minutes or an hour. So, if they book a 45 minute touch up for 2pm, I’m ready for them at 2pm and their appointment ends promptly at 2:45pm. This is true even if they’re late. The clock starts at the time they booked.

So if you structure your appointments in this way, if youre seeing a client that doesn’t keep their lashes clean, they’ll come in for their touch up with a less than average number of lash extensions remaining which means you won’t be able to get their lashes as full as they’d like within the time they booked. Now I should also mention I ALWAYS clean my clients lashes prior to applying lash extensions and you should too. So if your client isn’t regularly cleaning their lashes, you may have to spend more time prior to applying their lash extensions to get their lashes clean. If you have to do this, it takes time away from the time you could be spending applying extensions and getting their lashes nice and full.

I’m not saying you should never give your clients extra time…. I would reserve this strategy for the clients that don’t clean their lashes between touch ups after you’ve educated them and raised your prices with no change in behavior. Here’s what will happen the first few times you apply this strategy. When the appointment ends and they look in the mirror and their lashes don’t look as full or as great as they could, you can say something to the effect of, “I did the best I could in the time we had but make sure you clean your lashes everyday because that will help them last longer. The more lashes you come in with. the fuller I can get them.”

Works like a charm. When you say this, you’re making them take ownership of their results and letting them know they have the power to have a different result when they change their behavior and follow your aftercare instructions. Most clients will accept that they have total control over the results they get rather than blaming you. And hopefully, it encourages them to clean their lashes.

If none of these things have encouraged your client to keep their lashes clean, the final option is to end the relationship with them as gracefully and as gently as possible.

Ouch, right?

In the past, I had a client that after a few times coming to me, let me know that she probably wasn’t ever going to clean her lashes because she felt that she paid me to maintain her lashes and make sure they looked great. I appreciated her blatant honesty. I love it when people just own their truth and they don’t care what others think. Partly because it’s so uncommon to see these days and also because when someone is direct with me like that, it makes me feel more comfortable about owning my crazy and being direct right back. :)

So when this client told me that, I corrected her and told her that my job is to apply her lashes and give her my absolute best within the time shes with me. I also let her know that she doesn’t pay me to maintain her daily hygiene. When I said this, she smiled silently because she knew I was right. And if I had to guess, I don’t think anyone had ever given her a taste of her own medicine. Funny how that works, right?

I went on to tell her that lash extensions require maintenance in between appointments and if she wasn’t going to maintain her lashes according to my instructions, she isn’t a good candidate for lash extensions and perhaps she should look into strip lashes. That was the last day I ever saw her.

Not all clients are your clients. Not all clients are ideal candidates for lash extensions. As a professional, you have to be ok with that. Especially considering the tremendous liability you take on if a client develops an infection from not cleaning. There’s no amount of money that’s worth the headache that will come from working with a client like that.

I know it’s not easy working with people that don’t clean their lashes but the tips I’ve shared here have saved me a lot of time and frustration. The less time and energy I spend trying the convince a client to take care of their lashes, the more time I have to serve clients that value what I do and those are the clients that get my best work that I’m proud to put out into the universe.

If you found this helpful, leave a comment for me below. And if you want to learn more strategies like this and learn techniques to help you master your lash application, make sure you join my monthly subscription program, the Lash Masters Monthly by clicking the image below.