Running out of adhesive mid-week is stressful. Using expired adhesive on a client is a problem. Having twelve bottles slowly expiring in a drawer is just wasted money. Supply management is one of the unglamorous parts of running a lash business — easy to do badly, simple to do well once you have a system.
Understanding adhesive shelf life
Cyanoacrylate adhesive degrades over time, particularly once opened. Unopened, stored upright in a cool dark place with a silica sachet: most professional adhesives last 6–12 months from manufacture. Once opened: performance typically degrades meaningfully after 4–6 weeks. Mark the open date on every bottle the day you open it. Remove the guesswork.
💡 If you're at four weeks and the bottle is still half full, order a fresh one and retire the old one. Pushing an opened bottle past six weeks is a false economy — the retention complaints it causes cost you far more than the product itself.
Know your usage rate
How quickly you go through a bottle depends entirely on how busy you are. A tech doing full sets five days a week may burn through a bottle in 3–4 weeks. A part-time or emerging tech might find the same bottle lasting eight weeks — which means it should be replaced before it runs out, not stretched further.
The reorder threshold system
- Adhesive: reorder when you open a new bottle — so a replacement is always arriving before the current one ages out. Keep one spare maximum.
- Lash trays: reorder when you have less than two weeks' supply.
- Consumables (patches, micro brushes, primer, disposables): check weekly. Reorder anything you have less than two weeks' supply of.
Time to restock? Browse our adhesives and liquids, lash trays, and disposables — or grab a supply bundle to cover your core essentials in one order.
📌 Take stock of what you throw away each month — products that expired before you used them. For most techs who do this honestly, the number is higher than expected. Buying smaller amounts more frequently often costs slightly more per unit but significantly less in total waste.
Know your lead times
Know how long your primary supplier takes to ship and whether they have reliability issues with particular products. If your favourite adhesive is frequently out of stock, order one extra unit when you do your regular reorder — but don't over-stock. Regular customers often get advance notice of stock shortages or new product releases.
