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Category Archives: Mascara
Lancome Hypnôse Precious Cells Mascara
I’ve held off on writing about Lancome’s new Hypnôse Precious Cells Mascara because I was hoping to review it. Sadly, though, my upcoming vacation (have I mentioned that enough times yet, do you think?) has sapped all of the money out of my account very effectively, so the budget won’t quite stretch to it this month – stay tuned, though, because as you know, it’s my mission in life to try all of Lancome’s mascaras at least once, so I’m sure it won’t be too long before I succumb.
In the meantime, though, let the record show that this is a two-in-one product, in that it’s both a thickening mascara and a lash stimulant, so while it will give you an instantly thicker look to your lashes, the brand also claim that if you use it for 28 days, you’ll start to see an improvement in the natural thickness of your lashes. It does this using apple plant extract, plus some anti-hair loss ingredients which will help strengthen lashes at the root, condition them, and stop them falling out.
Sounds good to me, and I guess it was only a matter of time before someone hit on the idea of combining one of the lash-enhancing products that are so popular right now with an actual mascara. The product retails for £22, and is available in black, brown and blue. Anyone tried it?
Rimmel London 1-2-3 Looks Mascara: three looks in one
Rimmel’s new 1-2-3 Looks Mascara markets itself as “the first customizable mascara”, and if you’re wondering just what that means, well, the clue is in the name! This is designed to allow to create three different looks, depending on your mood and the occasion, and it comes with a “dial” top wand, which you simply twist until you reach the option you’re looking for, with each one giving you a little more volume than the last.
Option 1 provides 3x the volume of your natural lashes, for a “daytime” look.
Option 2 volumises the lashes by 5x, for a more dramatic look.
Option 3, meanwhile, gives you 10x the volume, for what Rimmel describes as “show stopping volume”.
Personally, I’m not sure I’d ever use the first two options here. My philosophy with mascara, you see, has always been “the bigger, the better” and I just can’t see why you’d want 3x the volume when you COULD have 10x the volume. I am a mascara obsessive, however, and I tend to think that every time is the right time for show-stopping volume. “Daytime look”? Pshaw! Give me the gigantic lashes and give me them NOW!
If, however, you like to change your lash look according to the time of day or type of occasion, this could be worth checking out, and at just £8, at least it’s not going to cost too much to investigate.
Anyone tried it yet? What did you think, if so?
Dollface Reviews: Estee Lauder Sumptuous Waterproof Bold Volume Lifting Mascara
Waterproof mascara? That promises to lift the lashes? This was always going to be one I’d want to try, so when Estee Lauder sent me a sample of their Sumptuous Waterproof Bold Volume Lifting Mascara last week, I couldn’t wait to try it out.
The name really tells you everything you need to know about this product. I was sent it in 02 – Brown, but it’s also available in black, and if you prefer a non-waterproof product, well, they do that too. When it comes from mascara, my preference is for products that make the lashes stick up towards the eyebrows (this makes your eyes look much bigger than a product that lengthens but doesn’t lift), and keep them there all day, and to my delight, that’s exactly what this does.
In the image above, my lashes are curled, and I’m wearing mascara on the left eye only, to give you an idea of the difference it makes. This mascara creates a spiky effect, and looks a little clumpy in the image, probably because I layered on quite a bit if it – it’s actually much better after one or two coats, but, me being me, I can never resist adding just one more…
This also gives a nice lengthening effect, and because it’s waterproof it doesn’t smudge or run, although it does remove easily enough with my trusty old Boots Botanics Soothing Eye-Makeup Remover.
It costs £18 per tube, and is available from Estee Lauder direct, or anywhere with an Estee Lauder counter.
Dollface Reviews: Lacura Beauty Volumising Mascara
No, that’s not a typo on the image: this mascara really does only cost £2.39, which has to make it one of the most affordable mascaras around, if not the most affordable. It’s by Aldi’s brand Lacura, which, you may remember, caused a bit of a stir last year with its Wrinkle Stop serum, and which has gone on to produce many more skincare and cosmetic products, some of which I’ll be reviewing here soon.
For now, though, the mascara, which Aldi sent me a couple of weeks ago, and which I’ve been putting through its paces ever since. This bills itself as a volumising mascara, but unlike most similar products, it comes with a slim brush rather than a thicker one. Perhaps because of this, I didn’t actually notice a whole lot of volumising, but I did find it easy to use and accurate, and the product goes on smoothly, and without any clumping.
As regular readers will know, my preference is for mascaras that lift and curl, as opposed to ones that add volume, so I’m always slightly biased when testing ones that don’t give me huge, spidery lashes! This is definitely more of a daytime mascara, and the look it creates is subtler than I would usually wear, but I was impressed with how nicely it goes on, and how long it lasts. I almost always wear waterproof mascara, which this isn’t, but it does a good job of staying put all day, and I haven’t had any running or smudging with it. I particularly like to use it on the lower lashes, because the shape of the brush is ideal for that, and there’s always just enough product on the brush to coat the lashes without making them clump together.
Overall, not a show-stopper, but definitely a good budget buy if you’re looking for a product to emphasise the eyes without spending a fortune. It’s available at Aldi.
Collection 2000 Big Fake Mascara
The blurb being used to market Collection 2000′s new ‘Big Fake’ mascara describes it as a provider of “flirtatious forties glamour”. Now, I love false eyelashes, and I also love all things 40s (I’m sure I don’t even need to mention that I love mascara, do I?) so this sounds almost as if it was designed just for me. There’s more, though: “This marvellous mascara will double your lash length in one fell swoop!” says the blurb. And even although, for some of us, that would mean eyelashes that reach our hairline, never mind our eyebrows, I’m pretty much sold.
I’m slightly out off by the fact that this is apparently Collection 2000′s biggest brush ever: I tend to prefer narrow mascara wands to big fat ones, but at just £4.99, I could be willing to give it a whirl, anyway. If you are too, it’s available from March 17th at Tesco, and from April 12th from other retailers.
Clinique High Lengths Mascara
I’d apologise for bringing you yet another mascara post this week, but if you’re a regular reader you’re already familiar with my mascara obsession, and if not, well, just lookit this! That’s quite some mascara wand, no?
This is Clinique’s new High Lengths Mascara, which is due for release this February, and as the name – and the appearance – suggests, this baby is all about length. Great! Me too! According to the people at Clinique, High Lengths “stretches lashes to unrivaled lengths with beautifully defined separation”. It does this by dint of that long, skinny applicator, which has a few different things going for it. Most noticeable is the length and shape: I much prefer thin applicators for mascaras, because I find them much more accurate, and much less messy than their chunky counterparts, so so far this one is looking good to me. The tines are also strategically placed, along one side of the wand only, and this is so that you always have the right amount of product on the applicator. The side without the tines is a smooth, bright green, so you always know which way round it’s supposed to go.
Add to all of this a bunch of lengthening and conditioning ingredients, and you have what sounds like a really interesting product. Will it live up to the claims, though? We’ll have to wait until February to find out.
Belvada one-handed mascara
Because I can be slow as molasses in January sometimes (or, you know, most of the time), it took a couple of seconds for the penny to drop with this one. “One-handed mascara?” I thought. “But… aren’t they ALL one-handed mascaras?” Well, no, they’re not: you need one hand to hold the wand, and the other hand to hold the tube you dip it into: or you did until now, at least, because Belvada’s new release allows you to do it all, one-handed.
So, how does it work? Well, rather than screwing open the tube, and then pushing the mascara wand back inside it when you want to re-load the brush, this uses a sliding mechanism to open, pushing the wand through the mascara, and ensuring the brush is evenly coated. As well as being able to use it with one hand, this also means you get less clumping, and your mascara should last for longer, because you won’t be tempted to “pump” the brush, which, as we all know, is what makes mascara dry out.
This gets amazing reviews on the Boots website, with people saying it’s well worth the £20 price tag. If you want to try it for yourself, you can buy it here.
DiorShow Extase Mascara
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson with Diorshow mascara by now, given that I’ve bought – and been unimpressed with – two different versions off it, but nope, apparently not. Not only did I almost buy ANOTHER tube of it in duty free while I was stuck for 17 hours at Las Palmas airport last month, I also find myself looking at this new version and thinking “Hmmm, I wonder what that’d be like on?”
No! I will not succumb to the lure of Diorshow. Well, no unless someone else tries it first and tells me it’s absolutely amazing, and actually, maybe not even then, to be honest, because the previous incarnations of this have been one of those products I’ve WANTED to like, but which just haven’t really worked out for me.
What’s different about Extase, then? Well, this one contains “Metamorphosis Powders”, which sounds like something out of Harry Potter, to be honest (Seriously, where do they get these names?) but which are designed to expand in size by up to 50% after application. This should, theoretically, mean long, luscious lashes, and it does, indeed contain conditioning agents too, to help repair any damage done by curlers etc. Dior say this can be used either on its own, or on top of your usual mascara, which is probably how I’d use it, being a fan of the “more than one mascara at any given time” technique.
If you’d like to try it out yourself, it costs $28 and is available from www.sephora.com.
Too Faced LashLight Mascara
The ol’ ‘lipgloss with a light in the lid’ has become fairly commonplace in the beauty world, but now here’s Too Faced with a mascara-with-a-light-in-the-lid. Ha! Didn’t expect that, did you? Or maybe you did. Maybe you frequently apply mascara in the dark, and all this time you’ve been thinking, “Lordy, if only someone would invent a light-up mascara!” And now someone has.
It’s not just the lid that lid that lights up, though: it’s your actual lashes. Because this contains, according to Too Faced, “millions of microscopic mirrors”. This means that when you apply it, the light bounces off said mirrors, making your lashes look shiny and glossy. Or that’s the theory, anyway. It also thickens and conditions the lashes, and contains “Panthenol and Vitamins C and E keep lashes healthy and Red Algae increases Keratin resistance for maximum lash flexibility”. So now you know.
Fancy trying it out? It’s $25 from www.sephora.com.
Dollface Reviews: Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes! mascara
I don’t often get my hopes up about new mascaras these days.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: I’m still more than happy with my usual Lancome and Fiberwig combo, but each new mascara I review usually leaves me feeling decidedly underwhelmed, which is why Tarte’s Lights, Camera, Lashes! came as such a pleasant surprise.
I wasn’t expecting much. This is billed as a “4-in-one” mascara, claiming to lengthen, curl, volumize AND condition, acting as “a push up bra for your lashes”. So it had a lot to live up to, basically. With the possible exception of the “conditioning” claim (I’ve only used it twice, so it hasn’t really had a chance to make much difference to the actual condition of my lashes, although it may well deliver on that front too, given time), I actually think it delivers on all of those. Yes, I know, it surprised me, too.
Let’s see…
It curls. I didn’t curl my lashes before applying it in the pictures above, and, as you can see, it has definitely curled them. So that’s one box checked.
It lengthens. Yep: Mr Dollface actually asked me if I was wearing what he referred to as “eyelash extensions” today, so I’d say it’s done some good there, too. Another box checked.
It volumises. I had to be careful with this one. I like my lashes long and spidery, so the temptation for me is to layer on the mascara like there’s no tomorrow. And that can obviously lead to clumpiness, which you can see a bit of on my right eye. I used less product on the left eye, and got less clumping, but less volume, too. There is a happy medium somewhere between the two, though, and I managed to arrive at that the first time I used this mascara, although I didn’t take photos on that occasion.
Overall, I really liked this and would definitely buy it again. I don’t often say that about mascara, so that’s high praise indeed. You can buy this at www.sephora.com, where it costs $18.
