Back in high school when all the girls looked like raccoons, thanks to copious amounts of mascara, my eyes were conspicuously bare. I'd ask my mom about how to use mascara. Her response: "You have dark lashes. You don't need it." Then she'd grab what looked like a 17-century torture device and curl her lashes. I so did not want to mess with that thing. I equated mascara with that scary eyelash curler and stayed away. For years.
So, I'm getting a late start on the mascara thing.
Despite what my mom always said, I think anyone's eyes look better with a slick of mascara. It adds impact, brings out your eyes even when you use nothing else. I'm a convert, even though I can't seem to find The One.
In the past six months, I've tried something from Tarte (a sample from Sephora), Mary Kay Signature mascara and now Maybelline XXL Pro Extensions, which is readily available at Target and drug stores for about $7.
The trick to this stuff is that it's got primer on one end and mascara on the other. Primer is a great thing, it thickens without requiring raccoon levels of mascara. The directions refer to the primer as a "base coat" and say that it will "uncross" unruly lashes and lock them into place. Um, no. It does coat them, though, and you have to be careful not to put it on too thick or you'll end up with clumps from the get-go.
The actual mascara itself does add oomph and did make my lashes look longer, but I had to run the brush in and out of the tube several times to prevent lumps.
Now, I never put mascara on the bottom lashes because when I do, I end up looking like Lindsay Lohan after a court hearing with the stuff smeared across my face. Yet somehow, the XXL Pro managed to migrate beneath my bottom lashes. The next day when I used it, I made sure to put concealer beneath my eyes (which I should probably do anyway to minimize the Samsonite baggage under there). That seemed to do the trick.
Only time will tell. But for now, I'm likin' the Maybelline XXL Pro Extensions mascara.
2 comments:
Thanks for this post - I am behind the times on the mascara front too and am currently on-the-market for some new lash goop.
Does the XXL Pro shmear under the eye? That's my biggest prob with mascaras so I usually look for the smudge-proof varieties which are often few and far between.
Yes, it did shmear (my too-obscure reference was the Lindsay Lohan post-hearing reference). But when I used concealer, it didn't. I still have more research to do. It's a good one to try, though.
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