If you remember, and why wouldn’t you, it was a monumental declaration, over a year ago I declared that I would go through a giant box of sample mascaras and do an experiment on which one I thought was the best.
And as with all of my best intentions, I managed to document only three of them before I simply resorted to trying them on and then declining most of them forever. Mascara is no joke.
The mascara needs to look natural. It needs to separate the lashes, lift my short spindly genetic shortfalls, from the hovels of my face and mold the shacks of my eyelashes into skyscrapers. I want the structure to last all day but easily tear down at night.
I tried all of the mascaras in Sephora’s 2013 Lash Stash box listed here:
Benefit They’re Real Mascara (which I all ready loved previously)
Blinc Mascara
Buxom Lash Mascara
Clinique High Impact Mascara
Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara
Lancome Hypnose Drama Mascara
Sephora Outrageous Mascara
Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant
Tarte Lights, Camera, Flashes Mascara
Yves Saint Laurent Volume Effect Mascara
I also tried MAC’s Zoom Fast Mascara, Clinique’s Lash Doubling Mascara, Maybelline’s Great Lash, Lancome’s Hypnose Doll Lashes, Benefit Bad Gal, and Bobbi Brown’s Everything Mascara through various samples and purchases.
It was quite a task, which is why it took me over a year to complete.
And at the end of it, I had narrowed my choices down to Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara (my old favorite) and Bobbi Brown’s Everything Mascara.
But then something unexpected happened.
I tried one of my last mascaras, Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant Mascara.
AND I LOVED IT.
It was everything I liked about Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara without the residual clumping that is hard to remove at the end of the day.
I could not wait to order a full size of it.
That is when I ran into a problem. I was not the only one who adored their trial of Make Up Forever Mascara from Sephora (I believe Sephora gave out samples in their birthday gifts last year). And I was not the only one who had decided to jump and order the full size version. However, before I did, I read the reviews. Many of them declared that for whatever the reason, the full size version did not live up to the smaller size.
Thankfully, you can order a travel size version. And that is what I have been doing for the last six months.
So, oddly, the travel sized Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant Mascara is the winner of my mascara trials. It lengthens lashes dramatically without being too stiff. It removes easily. It stays on all day without any flaking. It separates well. It is the mascara I will and have been exclusively buying for myself. Although, my daughter received the same kit. Her heart still belongs to Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara. So, that is the brand I buy for her.
Have you tried any of these mascaras? What is your favorite mascara? Have you done eyelash extensions? Or that eyelash growth serum? Or do you ever use fake eyelashes? I have tried the fake eyelashes once. But I have not perfected it. Maybe one day I will try again.
*This post is based on my own use of the different mascaras. Your experience may vary from my own. All photos here are unfiltered to truly show the way the product looks when I first apply it and the lighting I apply it in.
