Alice Kim got her start in the fashion industry as a jewelry designer before becoming involved in merchandising and marketing, working with luxury brands and such major retailers as Aeropostale and Club Monaco.

Living the fashion lifestyle in New York called for a lot of face time, and rushing from place to place often meant applying or refreshing makeup on the fly.

Key to her routine was optimizing her lashes. "I have short, stubby Asian lashes, so each eyelash has to count, but I don’t have time to do extensions," she said.

Borrowing a do-it-yourself trick from makeup artists, she knew that wedging a business card between lashes and eyelid while applying mascara built a barrier that not only prevented smudging, but also performed the task of separating lashes, with longer, fuller and more even results.

But plucking any old business card from her purse didn’t appeal to her. "I thought that was gross because it’s not sanitary," she said.

She’d always wanted to own her own business, and after she’d experimented with shapes that follow the curve of the eye, friends who saw her using her handmade cards asked her to make some for them as well, "and a product was born," she said.

Kim launched her company, Elizabeth Mott, to market her Lash Cards ($5.99), which come in packs of 10 individually wrapped mascara shields for girls on the go. They’re so new here that Kim said she’s had to do a lot of explaining, including offering a tutorial video on her website, www.lashcard.com.

Plastic mascara shields are available in Asia, she said, but just as she didn’t like knowing where a business card had been before it met her eyes, she didn’t like the idea of the shield brushing up with other items in her cosmetics case or purse. The Lash Cards are made of thick, business card-quality paper and are disposable for sanitary reasons.

Marketing her Lash Cards online has allowed her to move to Hawaii with her boyfriend, who’s from here.

She said she sometimes misses the food and energy of New York, but said, "People here have been so great and supportive, and the networking pool has been amazing."

BOOST BOTTOM LASHES

To solve another lash problem, that is, how to reach stubby lower lashes without ending up looking like a raccoon, Clinique comes to the rescue.

The company is introducing its new Bottom Lash Mascara this month, with a micro-minibrush for precise application, and a new 24-hour formula less prone to smudging and flaking, with jojoba oil for conditioning.

It comes in black and black/brown, at a cost of $10.