LIKE a lot of my other mum-friends, my make-up routine is generally a slick of lipgloss - generally applied in the car on the school run - and the days of never leaving the house without a full face of make-up on are long gone for me.

It's all I can do to get us breakfasted, packed lunches organised and bundled in the car of a morning. On the days I'm working in an office, one layer of make-up gets hastily applied, often in the car park, and that's it for the day.

While some women can't leave the house without applying their mascara, I don't even own any.

I've always had an aversion to wearing it, and although never having been afraid of using a trowel to put my make-up on, mascara is just something I've never quite got the hang of.

So I was pleased to discover that a local mum has launched her own eyelash extension business in Hillingdon. Yes you read that right - you can now get your eyelashes extended and thickened!

Mum of twins, Najaf, who runs the Lash Clinic, has many years of experience and did mine at Christmas, and I was so pleased with the finished result.

It's bum-numbing having them applied, as you need to lie completely still while Najaf bonds individual lashes to your own using tweezers.

It's not a quick process as she's such a perfectionist but as she wielded the tweezers mere millimetres from my eyes I was pleased to hear that she is truly well qualified in all things to do with eyes because she was an optometrist in life before kids.

I was very keen that mine were subtle lengthwise, and that they just generally thickened up the appearance of my own lashes. She did a brilliant job.

People asked if I'd changed my make-up or had my hair cut but no one guessed I had individual eyelash extensions applied.

The lashes generally last between four and six weeks - these are no false eyelashes that fall off within a week or two.

You can then go back and have infills done to extend the life of them.

Prices start from £40, which sounds a lot, but when you think of the cost of a designer mascara it's all comparable.

If you saw Sinitta on Dancing on Ice recently, her eyelashes were courtesy of Najaf.

To find out more visit www.thelashclinic.com  or call 07943 695 681.