Have you ever wondered where Premades come from and how they are made?
Lets talk about Premades first. We remember when the first lot of Premade Volume Fans arrived on the market in early 2016 in Australia. They were narrow volume fans in 3D 0.07, 3D 0.10 and 5D 0.07 with thick bases. You could also expect to pay up to $35 per tray for 12 lines! Shocking isn’t it? At that time every lash technician who offered volumes to their clients were Russian Volume artists. If you couldn’t handmade fans, you were only offering classic lash extensions. Of course this intrigued lash technicians, who wanted to expand into the volume category or technicians who found it too difficult to handmade fans.
Are you curious to see what they used to look like?
Can you imagine what the first response were when these Premades arrived? Lets say the response was very negative with so many Russian Volume artists saying, using Premades is cheating. This discussion went on for another 2 years. However, over time Premades have improved tremendously with many Russian Volume artists turning to Premades nowadays. Thanks to the introduction of Premade Volume Fans it has revolutionised our lash industry with even some of the most well known Lash beauty salon converting to Premades.
Now, we all know the benefits of using Premades:
- Offer various volume styles to our clients. From natural volumes all the way to mega volumes
- Less training. No extensive and expensive Russian Volume training. Just the one training can get you up and running
- Perfect symmetry. Every Premade fan is consistent making it easier to create perfect lash sets
- Time efficient. Complete full sets in as little as 1.5hrs and refills under 1hr
- Increase clientele. Spending less time to complete refills and full sets means you can see more clients
- Increase income. More clients means more income
Now lets talk about how Premade volume fans are made. Have you ever heard they are made by machines? First thing first when we say Premades, we are talking about heat bonded volume fans. We are not talking about Promades which are made by hand and bonded at the base with eyelash extension glue or other type of manufacturing glue.
So have you tried to imagine yet how Premade fans are made by machine? The answer is, they are actually not made by machines but by human hands. The process slightly differs to Promade fans but the overall process is very similar.
1. Fibres made out of Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT i.e. plastic) are picked in individual strands and added to make 3D, 4D, 5D etc. on a strip to stay in a small bundle. They are then cut the the required length 8mm, 9mm etc. The thickness of each strand is in 0.10, 0.07 etc.
2. Once all the lash strands are on a strip and cut, they are placed on a curl rod
3. Here comes the really tricky part. To lashes are wetted to stick to the rods. Once on the rods, each bundle are evenly separated with a sharp tool to open each fan with perfect symmetry.
4. Once perfectly separated, they are heated in a special oven to retain their curl.
Now you may ask how about the base? Is it glued together or does the heat in the oven glue the base together? Small manufacturing glue is placed on the base to keep them from falling apart. This is not the same glue we use for eyelash extensions.
Has one of your clients or a foreign refill client ever come to you with glue bases of Premades still stuck to their natural lashes but without the Premade lashes on? The answer would be most likely. Why this happens can be from various reason such as client after care, quality of Premade lashes, lash technician’s work/placement of Premade fans, lash glue itself etc.
Now the truth is, REAL heat bonded Premade lash extensions will actually look quite different on the base. We have seen REAL heat bonded Premades without the use of any adhesive. Unfortunately we threw them away and no longer can take photos off them but to describe them they are basically have flat melted bases and come closes to cluster lashes such as these ones here.
Do you also remember the saying heat bonded Premade Volum Fans are lighter then Promades? Now this isn’t actually correct either as again there are NO real heat bonded Premades. They all contain some sort of adhesive. Just Premades have come so far nowadays that the bases are no longer holding much weight with all the adhesive that was used to bond them together and compared to Promades nowadays, Promades really do not have much glue attached to their bases making Premades hardly much lighter then Promaades.
Now that we talked about all the manufacturing of Premade Lashes lets talk about where exactly they are made.
Firstly, majority of fibres to make Premade Lashes do come from South Korea but also from Japan and China. There is no such thing as all material coming from the same factory. If you ever tried to source your own lashes or tried a lot of different brands especially for Russian volumes, you would know they all differ. Have you wondered why some Premade Volume Fans in 0.07 can look darker, thicker, thinner, blacker, shinier then other brands? That’s because the fibres/material used in those Premades differ. Some fibres are labelled as 0.07 but are actually 0.085 or even 0.05 when measured. We have measured all our lashes and lets say there are NO strands that are always exactly 0.07. There will always be a small discrepancy even within a Premade Fan. For example we have pulled apart our 5D Premade Fan and measured each lash with some being 0.069 and others at 0.072. No lash will be exactly the same thickness but they will all be very close in the said diameter.
While the fibres can come from any of those countries, they will still need to be processed into Premade Volume Fans. Can you guess which countries would most likely make those fibres into Premades?
Lets have the drum rolling……..drum drum drummmm…… YESSSS you guessed it right China! BUT BUT BUT they can also come from South Korea!!! And one other country. A country we never even speak off or even thought of. Can you guess which other country? This is actually TOP SECRET. No manufacturer will let you know of this one. They may only speak of it if you become a loyal client of theirs. You can also NOT buy from that country directly either so you will always have a middle man, which may be a Chinese manufacturer. This other country is no other country then North Korea!!! Ahuh! Would you ever have guessed this? In fact North Korea actually produces a lot of our eyelash extensions especially pre Covid time.
Shocked? Well we all learn something new and this is industry secret among lash suppliers that’s actually if they even know. No supplier will ever let this one out the bag but here we are giving this one away.
HAPPY LASHING and we hope you learnt something new <3