I get it, when I first heard about LED/UV curing lash adhesive, my first thought was “Is this like a nail UV light? Will it cause cancer? Will it damage skin tissue?”
I was so worried about the safety of it and couldn’t really understand why it was even a thing deemed necessary.
Well, I can only speak for myself but when I don’t understand something about the industry I work in, I will seek out that knowledge and learn so I can make an educated and informed opinion.
I put my time into this research and learned a ton from @lashcast podcasts that ran for a few months over many episodes and specifically had the following three individuals give the “okay” for this technology:
- Dr. Warren Stout, who co-founded the Doheny eye research where they worked on eye lasers and Lasik. He specifically talks about how there are no dangers with this technology pertaining to the eye and eye tissue, as long as it is within the correct range of wavelength.
- Todd Harris, a physicist who specializes in photonics and light and also agrees that this is safe
- Michael Becker, a chemist that specializes in adhesives and talks a lot about the photo initiators used in the adhesive to make this technology work.
So as a lash artist, when I have a physicist, a chemist, and a doctor telling me that this is SAFE, I’m going to believe them.
Now, it should also be said that there will always be companies and brands out there willing to do unsafe things to make some money. So there definitely are some UV/LED lash systems out there that are unregulated and are not safe at all.
There are currently only *three* brands I can confidently say are actually safe to use and that is illumino lashes, extreme lashes, and Lash Apothecary.
I personally chose the Opal system by Lash Apothecary because it is third party tested in a lab to test for safety. They use a purple light to cure the photo initiator adhesive. A purple light is MORE safe than the blue light your phone emits.
Their adhesive is made in the U.S.A. and is made without a toxic chemical known as TPO that other brands actually will put in their adhesives.
Another thing many people do not know is that regular lash adhesive is typically unregulated and can contain many dangerous and toxic substances. So even if you’re using regular adhesive and want to think that it’s safer than LED adhesive it’s most likely not because if it’s not specifically made in the UK then it is very much unregulated.
This light (The Opal system) does not and will never penetrate skin tissue (the blue light from your phone however, does).
The purple LED light I use is 5 watts whereas typical LED bulbs in your home can be 100 watts.
You get more UV radiation standing in the sun for 1 minute than you would *ever* in accumulated lash time get from the lash curing light I use.
The adhesive from lash apothecary that cures with the opal system that I use contains 25% less cyanoacrylate than the average lash adhesive and produces 1/300th the amount of formaldehyde than regular lash adhesive does. So it’s actually SAFER to use this than regular lash adhesive 🤷♀️
I personally chose to start using light cured adhesive as a lash artist because my environment is too unstable when it comes to humidity and temperature, and I’m also very allergic to cyanoacrylate so the less I can be around, the better for me.
Once I learned that it was actually safer for both me and my clients to use this, I was on board.
I really don’t think this is a trend or a fad, I truly think this is the future of the industry because of its efficacy and safety.