A question suppliers and technicians get quite often is "are your lashes mink or silk?" and it can get a little confusing as there is a bit of conflicting information out there about what the exact difference between mink and silk lashes.
We like to know constantly what's changing, what's different and what's yet to come in the industry of lashes and the making of them. This requires us to travel frequently, visiting our manufactures in Korea and getting updates on the lash world, where they make our trays individually, each tray HAND MADE!
Well, hopefully this breaks it down a little on what our lashes are made from and answers questions for you and your clients.
Ever heard of PBT?
It stands for Polybutylene Terephthalate. There are lots of fancy chemical words you could put into this sentence to define exactly what PBT is, but to break it all down, it is just a high quality form of plastic.
PBT is handy stuff and excellent to use for lash extensions for it is very strong, does not change it’s shape very easily, shrinks very little & is heat resistant.
They use PBT in electrical stuff often.
There are different qualities of PBT, and some are higher than others.
Originally, loose lashes (commonly known as “acrylic lashes”) were the only ones available.
In actual fact they are not even made out of acrylic either, but instead PBT.
But due to wanting lash extensions to sound a little more fancy to consumers, some bright chap thought up a great marketing idea and decided to call them instead “silk lashes” or “mink lashes”, they also wanted to improve their usability and put them on a tray instead of being loose.
And thus we enter the world of silk & mink lashes.
Silk is from a special worm. (see below)
Mink is a furry little animal. (see below)
There are authentic mink eyelash extensions available, but a lot of technicians find them hard to work with because of the difference in thickness and they lose their curl very rapidly & they are usually rather expensive.
Also there is quite a lot of debate on exactly how these little animals are farmed and some say not too humanely.
Because of this, Locks Lash has decided not to stock or supply authentic mink lashes. We don’t supply ‘faux mink’ either simply due to consumers not knowing all the above and see the word mink & automatically assume they are real mink.
The alternative to authentic mink is actually ‘faux silk’ or ‘faux mink’ (faux means "fake" in French), which are purchased in trays and are PBT and will have no silk or mink in them.
Most manufactures and suppliers will call their lashes ‘silk’ or ‘mink’ when actually they are not. They are simply PBT.
The manufacturing of faux silk & faux mink is amazing...each lash row is placed by hand on the adhesive strip! You will find because of this human quality control factor that the faux silk & faux mink are usually a bit better in their consistency of curl and thickness. Sometimes, not all the time however.
Faux silk & faux mink will traditionally cost more than loose lashes, only because of the higher manufacturing costs of doing the trays all by hand. You may find that the darker the lashes (or richer the black) will sometimes be a higher grade PBT & better quality.
Here's another thing that a lot of techs don't know, are you ready?
People often think that loose (acrylic) lashes are an inferior product to faux silk & faux mink lashes. But actually they are exactly the same as faux silk & faux mink, they just have not been put onto a tray.
So that explains what ‘silk’, ‘mink’ and ‘loose’ lashes are...but what about the difference between all of them you ask?! How do you choose if they are all actually the same?
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Well if you like picking them up, then loose lashes are for you.
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If you like to advertise that you supply mink lashes, then they are for you.
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If you think silk sounds soft then they are for you. Simple as that.
Basically, this is a little difficult to answer because the difference between faux mink & faux silk will change with the manufacture & supplier to supplier. There is no universal standard difference.
Locks Lash faux silk lashes are beautiful, soft, silky feeling, dark & rich in colour, made of very high grade PBT which encourages them to hold their curl beautifully.
Hopefully this has answered the big mystery on what the different is between the two different types of lashes.
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact our support team:
(03) 9376 4426