What’s The Difference Between Handmade And Pre-made Fans ?

Creating a symmetrical, beautiful fan takes months of practice, tons of patience, and skill. Many lash artists have shed tears of frustration when learning Volume, and no, we aren’t kidding! That’s why there is a major difference between a lash technician and a lash artist, which is the term most top salons call their staff. These top-notch salons offer handmade volume sets made by their highly trained and skilled lash artists.

When something is complicated, many companies offer a shortcut — they use products like pre-made fans, which bypasses all the hard work and time spent practising as you don’t require any training, or even a special tweezer, to use pre-made fans. If your clients are time and money poor, then this would be the way to go for them. There are always advantages and disadvantages.

Handmade fans, also known as pro-made fans, are created by the lash artist without the use of machinery. These are often made real-time during the appointment. Handmade fans are created by removing a few fibres from the strip, and they are fanned using the technician’s preferred method, dipped into the adhesive, and placed on the client’s natural lash. For pro-made fans, you repeat the same process, and instead of placing the fan on the natural lash, the adhesive is rapidly cured and stored for later use.

Pre-made fans, just as the name implies, are created by the manufacturer, and delivered to the artist, ready to be dipped and applied. The process of making pre-made fans is similar to that of a strip lash. A person is involved, but they are completely assisted by machines. Pre-made volume fans are then either bonded at the base by heat or glue, and the finished product comes in a tray on a sticky strip similar to individual lashes.

WHAT ARE THE PROS & CONS?

Like fingerprints or snowflakes, no two natural lash lines are the same. Some clients have fine lashes so sparse you could count them, while others have lush lash lines that go on forever. As a lash artist, you must understand that each client’s individual natural lashes are all at their own stages of growth. With this in mind, you will have to carefully calculate the extension diameter, length, and weight before applying the fan to each lash. You will require complete control in creating your fans to balance the weight of the extensions on the natural lash, while still achieving the ideal look of the full set. Though this is not the easy method, handmaking volume fans are the ultimate tool if you have to customise each set for your clients.

On the flip side, pre-made fans offer little to no flexibility in customisation. They cannot adapt to individual lash textures, lengths, or strengths, and they are stiffer in texture and feel compared to handmade, which have a cloud-like feel. Additionally, the artist doesn’t have control over the amount of adhesive already on the fan like they do when they create their own. This means that more weight will be added once the volume fan is dipped in adhesive a second time. With pre-made fans, it is also impossible to achieve the “wrap” of the adhesive and the bases of each extension around the natural lash. Because of this, the retention period of the fan is likely to be affected once you apply it and it may not be as good as making and placing your fans in real-time during the service.

Purchasing pre-made lashes can save you time and energy, which you can spend on booking more clients or growing your business. They may be costlier than making your own, which is something to consider. Whatever you choose, take the time to perfect your craft. Without a proper technique and good control over adhesive application, it won’t matter which method you choose.

All things considered, these choices are yours to make as the artist. We highly recommend being trained professionally in the art of Russian Volume handmade fan making at your own pace, and building those skills. It’s important to remember that it’s about quality, not quantity. If your handmade fans last longer for your clients than the pre-made fans, it’s clear that, in the long run, handmade fans allow more control in the lashing process from start to finish, giving you, the artist, complete customisation abilities.

One of the perks of being trained in Russian Volume is that you can advertise yourself as a Lash Artist and charge more! Even if you still offer a pre-made set, clients will source you out for those skills.

This even opens the door for you to grow more as an artist and enter Lash competitions.
You could be the artist that you and others follow on Instagram! Something to remember if you offer a pre-made set: call it that, and outline the advantages, disadvantages, and differences to clients so that they know exactly what they are paying for—then it’s their choice to make!

Whether you’re new to handmade volume or you want to perfect your craft, we would love to teach you the skills of volume lashing in our 1-day course that covers Russian volume and Hybrid & Mega volume. When you become a Ceecee’s certified technician, you are backed by a recognised brand in the industry that covers layering, fanning techniques, fan adhesive dipping, and more!

Hope this blog has been useful!

Happy lashing!

Carole CEO & the Ceecee’s team