BOOK Now

Handmade fans or pre-made volume fans?

handmade volume fans and lash styling by amy rodgers of beautifeyes

Handmade fans or pre-made volume fans?

Hi my Name is Amy and I own a successful Lash Studio in Sydney.

The new lash debate:

Handmade volume fans or pre-made volume fans?

Lash artists that are trained in Russian Volume can produce fans at the time of appointment and keep appointment times around 3 hours.

Handmade volume allows the artist to create fans that are made for each individual lash and keep adhesive to a minimum by only dipping once.

  • Pre-made volume fans are often made with glue bonded ends or heat bonded ends.
  • More glue equals more weight that the natural lash has to hold up while growing. 


Each natural lash will differ in size and thickness.
So although 1 natural lash might be able to hold a 5d fan, the lashes around it might only be able to hold a 3d fan in the same length. 

When using pre-mades or pro-mades, the amount in the fan has already been created, this means that you could be attaching a large fan to a little eyelash.

What is the difference between Pro-made and Pre-made? 

  • Pro-made are made by a lash artist.

They take time to make the volume lashes and then bond it.
They are usually stored in lash cases of the same curl, diameter & length similar to that of buying pre-made lash extensions. 

  • Pre-made are made by the manufacturer.

They are bonded either by adhesive or heat.
Depending on the manufacturer, the bases can be pretty different. Some have large bases & others have thin bases.

The main issue for pre-mades are the following:

  • they attach like a classic lash, so not wrapping technique is used
  • the fans are too big for the client
  • extra adhesive used – both which cause extra weight for the natural lash

It can also get very costly for the lash artist to buy trays of pre-made lashes. Trays have a limited number of volume fans & when producing sets, different lengths need to be used.
If the volume fans don’t attach, then it is discarded and this can lead to excess waste for the artist.

Side note:
Pre-mades are not the same as cluster lashes.
Clusters, also known as party lashes, are very thick extensions made into oversized volume fans & designed to be used like strip lashes. These should only be applied with a water based glue that will come off after a certain amount of hours.

For more information please check out the other articles on our blog & follow us on Instagram @beautifeyes_sydney