Every Saturday, Maite Hernandez gets a French manicure and her long hair styled. Twice a month, it's time for a pedicure.

And just like clockwork, every third week Hernandez heads to Forever Tan in Miami to replenish her false eyelashes.

''It makes you look a lot more feminine,'' said Hernandez, 44, an administrative secretary who wears Bebe outfits and carries a Louis Vuitton purse. ``They just look so good.''

Women who regularly rely on salons for their stylish upkeep are adding eyelash extensions to their maintenance rituals. Gluing synthetic hair to eyelashes isn't new; glamour magazines have hyped it for a couple years as a secret of the stars.

But as the process has improved with better glue and more natural-looking lashes, regular women are starting to demand it. Salons are rushing to accommodate them.

Luscious lashes don't come easy -- or cheap. The initial set can take up to 90 minutes to apply, lasts two months at most, and cost up to $500. But with regular half-hour touch-ups for about $75, women of any age can have lashes as downy and full as a newborn's.

''It looks very natural -- it's fabulous,'' said Mariela Ortega, a Miami Beach model who had her eyelashes done for the first time two months ago and now goes in every 20 days to patch the holes.

``I don't use mascara, nothing. I don't need it.''

At Myra & Co., the eyelash business is booming. Erica Porter, who co-owns the South Miami day spa with her mother, Myra, is getting 10 technicians trained in the art of eyelash extensions.

''We started with two girls doing lashes and now they are pretty much booked, with a waiting list,'' Porter said. The spa now gets seven percent of its revenue from eyelash extensions, she said.

False eyelashes used to be thought of as ''a '60s thing'' -- glaringly faux, ringed in thick black eyeliner -- for a highly stylized Mod look.

But these days, women who work in downtown firms are asking for the service as often as those who take their cues from Jennifer Lopez, one of Hollywood's lash-extension queens.

Janet Valdivia, head of the makeup and lash department at Myra & Co., learned the technique three years ago. She was surprised to see it blossom into a trend.

``At first I thought, maybe it's a fad, and then I said, this isn't a fad. The women were totally loving it. They kept coming back.''

''They'' tend to be women who factor salon bills into their monthly budgets alongside electric bills, a high-maintenance gang who sees beauty enhancement as more necessity than luxury.

''It's for a woman who has good upkeeping,'' Valdivia said. ``She's very much into looking polished. You'll have a person in business who wants to look like their eyes are opened a little bit more or a person with a successful husband who wants to keep herself in the latest style. Or, they're people in the fashion industry or television.''

With a handful of companies now manufacturing the false lashes, technicians have enough variety to alternate density, length and color within a single row of lashes. Customers often want an unevenness that mirrors natural irregularities.

Valdivia said she can evoke different looks, depending on the type of lashes she applies. Longer lashes applied to the corners of the eyes will create a ''cat eye'' look. ''Doe eyes'' require long lashes in the center of the eye. Tiny artificial hairs on the upper and lower rows widen the eyes, Valdivia said. And when one eye is smaller than the other, false lashes can compensate, she said.

''I can't live without it,'' said one of her clients, Beatriz Reyes, a Miami resident who owns a women's clothing store in the Bahamas. ``I feel naked if I don't have it on.''

GLAMMING UP

These days, women can opt for shorter-term lashes, also applied in salons, and for a fraction of the cost, beginning at around $35. Some are glued in bundles of three or four hairs to the eyelash or to the eyelid itself.

Lucia Kremer, who applies eyelash extensions at Glamour by J's in Miami Beach, services a cadre of young clubgoers who choose the cheaper lashes to add a dash of glamour to the weekend. But the lashes usually fall off within a week.

Advances have made all eyelash services more appealing, Kremer said.

''In the beginning, the glue was not too good, which is the most important thing,'' said Kremer, who charges $60 for the short-term set and whose bookings for that type double at week's end, to about 20, she said.

The lashes craze isn't limited to upscale salons. Those across the spectrum, from mall salons to high-end hotel salons, are gearing up to offer the service. RikRak Salon on Brickell Avenue started offering eyelash extensions about nine months ago, said co-owner Raquel Watters.

''We really haven't had to advertise much because people ask for it,'' Watters said.

``It's part of salon [offerings] now.''

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