My cousin turned 16 last week and since she has always been obsessed with eyelashes, I purchased the Wahanda deal for Benito Brow Bar (Nationwide) to get their “WOW – Lash Extensions” a 45 minute express lash treatment.
I have heard of Benito Brow Bar before (seen them in Selfridges and they now have concessions in Debenhams, Selfridges, House of Fraser in various locations). They do brow threading as well as lash tinting and the extensions.
Booking the treatment was a real pain in the bum.
Firstly, I got the voucher right away because the deal had already tipped so was ready to call (since I wanted the appointment later on in the week).
I called Benito number as instructed and they told me I had the wrong location and had to call the Trafford Centre.
There are 2 locations (according to their website) where they have concessions at the Trafford Centre and in the City Centre. After some investigation and a few phone calls we established that there is no Benito Brow Bar at the Trafford Centre (or at least Selfridges and Debenhams there denied all knowledge).
So I called the City Centre location again to say there were no concessions at The Trafford Centre. They told me that even so, they didn’t know what I was talking about. But they could offer me lashes for £80. No thanks.
I called back again later on, hoping the offer information had filtered through once again I was told there was no such thing.
I got in touch with Wahanda who were looking into matter and shortly after I called again. This time I was told that they wouldn’t book the appointment until after they had got in touch with Head Office.
By this time, Wahanda had been in touch and gave me the OK to call, so I called them AGAIN and managed to book an appointment. Grrrr!
I took the teenager to the concession on Saturday. 2 therapists greeted us and they were nice enough.
We were 5 minutes late and boy did we rush to get there on time – but no matter because the therapist who was doing the treatment was a stonking 30 minutes late, and not ONCE did anyone actually say sorry to us – yeah I was taken aback!
But we were there then, and the therapist muddled on, and I went for a mooch around the shops to wait for her.
I kept walking past a few times to see how she was getting on; I noticed they had swapped therapist from the girl we had waited 30 minutes for to another girl who was doing the threading earlier – if she was capable of doing extensions, why the hell did we wait so long for the other girl? Or were they just allowing therapist II do some practise?!
Anyway here is the before and after – the photos are not great quality, I had to make do with store lighting then kitchen lighting but you get the idea!
Before:
After:
Initially the result seemed good to me. There was a bit of curl (I told her we wanted a C-curl lash to lift my cousins lashes but she said that all the lashes were the same).
I had a good inspection of the lashes after. NOTE: My cousin likes it very much and that’s great, I am happy with that.
However – I noticed that the right eye sat lower than the left eye and they were not entirely even. There are more lashes on the right eye:
The length is fine though and the density is quite nice, gives quite a retro look. There was glue left on both of the lashes, which is less than ideal – a good brush through with a spoolie would have solved that.
The other thing is that the base of the lashes is clumpy and the glue has been applied too thick. The skill of lash extensions is what warrants the cost of the service, if you ask me. I have quite a few treatments and the worst ones are when the therapist SLAPS ON the lash glue like there’s no tomorrow because it’s so damaging to the natural lash.
If you look at these lashes then look at the pictures of my Sue Marsh lashes you can see the difference at the base of the lash. I don’t think I will be doing my lashes again for a long time because of the damage it can cause the natural lash (unless Sue does it of course!).
Her other eye:
Verdict:
My girl is happy with her lashes and that’s the most important thing although from my critical point of view, these were quite slap dash. Everything was kind of half arsed at Benito Brow Bar, and it showed. The lashes aren’t even, and there are clumps of glue all over.
I don’t know if the service was worse because I had a discounted price from Wahanda? Certainly the mess when I was booking didn’t cast the company in a good light and when we were left waiting for a therapist to show up (with no apology…hey, parking the car costs money!) I was not happy but hung on for the teenagers sake.
The teen tells me the girls were find when doing the treatment but they were talking the whole time “about college courses”….please don’t tell me it was to study lash extensions.
My verdict is – a big fat nada for Benito Brow Bar. There are a squillion places offering threading and lash extensions, why on earth would I go through all that hassle again (discount or not!)?
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Wat a cute picture of Snobby he looks Snobby indeed-
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There was indeed a Benito Brow Bar in Selfridges Trafford Centre! I know because both me and my cousin had our eyebrows threaded there. However, when I was walking through Selfridges last week they weren’t were they used to be…so either they’ve been moved or closed down!
They were okay for the brow threading, although I have nothing to compare to because it was my first time! However, my cousin was told at her next threading session back where she lives that whoever had done her brows the last time had shaped them wrong!
Any recommendations for good threading places?
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