Volume fan tips

• Why are my fans flopping?
• Why is my adhesive travelling up my fans?
• Why are my fans closing?
• Why can’t I pick up my fan with my tweezers?

These are questions I get a lot from students and what I see asked on many lash forums the struggle is real, and it can be so frustrating as a lash technician. You spend so much time making the perfect fan to see it literally flop or close up after applying it to the natural lash or your clients come back with fans that look bunched and a mess.

This is why correct training is so important. Often self-taught technicians or watching techniques on YouTube for e.g result in these issues never being solved! YouTube is not watching over you and stepping in to troubleshoot and self-taught will not get you the answers meaning you will forever be going around in circles and never perfecting the art of Russian Volume lashes. Most likely you will just give up and only use Pre-made fans this will limit your level of expertise in the industry not allowing you to advance in becoming a master volume expert. Investing in training is so essential in becoming not just a technician but an artist! Plus, how good does is also look to have all your certificates on show to clients.

Flopping fans is most likely placement and glue control. It’s very important to know the dry time of your glue as the dry time is how long you need to hold that fan on the natural lash.

If you just drop it on and let, go the adhesive has not had enough time to harden the base enough to hold it in place and will result in it flopping. If your using a very fast glue you might not be getting the fan on quick enough and the adhesive has dried already. With volume fans using the wrapping or wriggling technique will also stop fans from flopping. Place your fans from under the Natural lash and wrap it up and around this gets the n/l caught up in the fan and adhesive especially if using strong curls, the adhesion point is less. Wriggling the fans on top of the n/l will also ensure great adhesion to stop flopping.

Adhesive travelling up the fans is called wicking causing the fan to close up and look like a tree stump. Dipping a fan into adhesive is totally different to swiping through with a classic lash. When using adhesive especially fast drying it’s going to travel up the very fine lashes in the stems so just tapping the adhesive lightly and minimal is ideal to seal the stems and blossom out your fan. Also check the temperature in your room if it’s quite warm this can also cause the adhesive to travel.

Volume tweezers and how we use them is so different to using our classic tweezers.

Volume lashes are so light in weight they can easily slip from our tweezers and that beautiful perfect fan we just made has gone on pickup so frustrating! Firstly, every tweezer has a sweet spot and its different on every tweezer it might be closer to the point or in the middle either way you need to know where it is. Your grip on your tweezer is going to be stronger than picking up a classic lash. when picking up the fans make sure you grip a little harder. We use the grip of our tweezer also when making fans blossom by gripping tight to letting go slightly then gripping again this technique takes a lot of practise, but it works.

All these frustrating issues can be resolved and when you know why it’s happening you will feel like a weight has been lifted of your shoulders and the struggle and frustration will be gone leaving you to enjoy the art of making Russian volume fans and not wanting to give up you will see the difference and so will your clients in how their volume lashes look.

So many students ask why can’t I just learn classic and volume all in one class? Well the answer is clear you must do classic first get the fundamentals done then take on Russian volume it’s a totally different technique and you need to separate classic from volume and master them individually. Remember Youtube is not going to tell you what you’re doing wrong.

My advice is to invest in great training to find out more about our Russian volume training visit our website or give us a call to inquire.

Happy fanning !