Affordable Beauty: Eyelashes - All Under £5

There's some makeup things in life that you can't afford to scrimp on, but when it comes to eyelashes, I've never really been too comfortable spending anything over £15 for.. and even then I question whether I can get them cheaper because even though they're reuseable, I tend to have to cut off a fair bit to fit the short width of my eyes, which really does hurt sometimes!

Alas, I have scoured a few places to put together an affordable list of eyelashes, most of which suit small eyes like mine and all under £5 🙌🏽

Read on to see what I've found so far..

My Eye Shape
Before I start, I just thought I'd describe my eye shape as I think it's a pretty important factor for me when deciding to buy lashes. I consider my eye shape to be more almond shaped and the inner corner of my eye is flatter than the rounder part of my eyelids, which means that eyelashes with stiff bands tend to ping off on my inner corner. For this reason, I always favour invisible/flexible/thin looking bands as I need to be able to mould it slightly flatter for my inner corner. I have friends who's eye shapes are much more rounded the whole length of the eyelid/lashline and they have no issue applying stiff/rounded eyelash bands which I'm slightly envious of, but sometimes I can wear these types of lashes if I trim them short enough to start a bit further away from my inner corner.
I find that Mink lashes tend to have the thickest and stiffest bands so tend to avoid these unless I find a more flexible/thinner band.  Compared to friends and clients with easier/bigger/rounder eye shapes I feel like my eye shape is slightly difficult to work with, so my preference of lashes should suit most if not all eye shapes.. read on to see my recommendations!
1. Poundland Eyelashes  £1/twin pack

First of all, this was an unexpected find in Poundland first time around when I saw them, I picked up only one pack at the time and instantly regretted it after trying them on as they were perfect and I wanted more! Of course when in Poundland (or Primark too) if you see something that looks promising, it's worth picking up more than one because more than likely it won't be there the next time you visit. After a month or two of scouring all the Poundlands near me, I finally found one that had these twin pack of lashes and in various promising shades so I scooped up as many as I could and even gave one recently to my mate Tanzina (Makeup A to Z) when we attended a Sleek event recently as she liked them too. You can see me wearing the first pack of lashes I bought from Poundland in my swatch videos here and here, I even wore them in my L'Oreal Matte Addiction campaign too! So yeah for my small eyes I find them pretty good, especially as they have the flexible band that I tend to favour when picking lashes and two pairs for £1 is pretty damn cheap so you can't go wrong!
2. Ardell Eyelashes  £2.99-5.49 per pair

For yearsss, Ardell lashes have been my go-to especially the demi wispie style which tends to suit at least 80% of eye shapes I've worked on, especially as they have the flexible band which is perfect for non rounded (difficult) eye shapes like mine; needless to say I bulk buy these for my kit as well as myself and as I don't need the glue in every pack and the best place to buy without glue for me has been PAKS, who sell them for £2.99 each (here). Unfortunately the "120" demi wispie style seems to be discontinued on their website but if you have a PAKS store near you, it's definitely worth browsing for not just eyelashes but other beauty essentials too at very low prices (they're where I first discovered Sleek makeup!).
If you'd like to buy with the glue, the demi wispie style is available at Superdrug or Boots for £5.49 each or you can buy a multipack of 4 demi wispie lashes for £11.99 here, which works out around £2.99 each.
3. eBay Ardell Demi Wispie dupes  £1.99/5 pack

Of course I've trawled eBay many a time for lashes and have made some epic fails at trying to find dupes of other brands but this 5 pack of demi wispie style lashes is pretty great if you don't mind a bit of inconsistency in the way the lashes are separated which is quite common even in expensive lashes.  If you're a group of bridesmaids, I reckon these lashes would suit most if not all eye shapes.. they're slightly longer in length than Ardell ones which does look a bit much on smaller eyes like mine, but for occasions it can look fine and not too out there.
This set of 5 is only £1.99 here (#A20) and shipped from the UK which means fast delivery. There are other lashes in this listing including Mink lashes but I wasn't a fan of them unfortunately as the lashes too thin for my liking of mink lashes.
4. eBay Mink Eyelashes £2.99 each

Whilst on the subject of eBay lashes, these Mink ones were a very recent find for me and as I said above, I've bought mink lashes from the previous listing and was a bit disappointed at the thickness of the actual lash hairs. These ones however are super fluttery in comparison and I did post it on my Instagram story when I received them (which had tons of interest) so I posted the link there too.. and now stock seems low/sold out lol. Either way, I'm going to include these in this post as they're super pretty and the band isn't too thick thankfully, so can be worn comfortably on my small eyes, although I do have to trim them a bit. You can see me wearing the 05 Harmony lashes (which are the thicker of the two pictured here) in this IG makeup look post.
Available here for £2.99.

5. Lash Unlimited Eyelashes £3.49 each

I came across this brand at a makeup show (UMAE) and am pretty sure I got these on special offer at the show (I think possibly £2 or £2.50 each), however online they are £3.49 each. I chose these light styles for their flexible bands of course and especially the end lashes (#14) which come in handy when you just want to add a bit of flare to the end of your eyes. They do have some demi wispie style lashes as well as some that look like they could be Huda Beauty dupes but I've not tried them yet so I can't comment!
Available directly from Lash Unlimited here.

6. iLashes £2 each

This was a brand I discovered on instagram a year or so ago, who contacted me to send me a bunch of lashes and I was shocked that the price point was so low! The styles pictured above were my favourite of the ones sent, but since checking their website recently I quite like the look of the demis now than the ones sent above as they're more of a criss cross design than straight from the lash band. I like that these lashes are super affordable (only £2!) and have flexible bands too, so they're worth checking out here.
Hope you found this post helpful, please do comment below with your favourite affordable lash brands/links below for anyone else that reads this post!