Earlier this summer, plagued by vanity and a circle of friends with amped-up eyelashes, I succumbed and had eyelash extensions attached to my sad lashes, as many of you will recall.

Don’t do this. Let me save you from yourselves.

In the beginning, I looooved them — they meant the end of mascara, 10 minutes saved from my morning routine, and they made me feel pretty in all my photos. But they only stayed attached to my spindles for 8-day stints, and then it was $50 and an hour at the salon to have my vanity restored.  I was like a junkie, calling my contact for last-minute appointments, asking her to stay late, meeting her in the back room of the salon, desperate for a fix.

Pathétique, my friends. And so I stopped, let them all fall out.

I was left with stubs. War victims. Eyelashes so short and sparse and damaged that I probably cried my three remaining lashes out onto my pillow. I said bad things about my former eyelash goddess. I didn’t know this was going to happen.

Picture something like this:

So I wore false, drugstore glue-on eyelashes to work for two weeks while they filled in a bit, and I bought a tube of LiLash. It’s like Latisse, but without the eye color-changing risk. (My eyes are precisely the kind that it changes.)

You can put it on at night, or in the morning, pre-makeup. It helps your natural eyelashes grow. It’s been about 7 weeks.

My babies are back, and this time, they’re real.

I feel like a gospel choir: Lilash, baby, it’ll raise you up and carry you home.

I particularly love it with my beloved “They’re Real” mascara by Benefit, which has the most precise brush and allows me to coat the tiny inner-eye lashes and goop up the far end lashes for the Bambi effect.

It’s been a long seven weeks my friends, but I’ve been saved. The war is over. Hallelujah, Amen.

And happy Friday to you all.