They all lengthen, but I'll only rebuy two of them.
You know how athletes train relentlessly for small wins like beating their best-ever mile pace by .7 seconds? I am the Usain Bolt of mascara.
Most decent to good mascaras look the same on me. Even great mascaras only look narrowly better than good ones to the naked eye and people who see me on a regular basis.
But I stay chasing Disney villain lashes and trying as many mascaras as I can get my hands on. Call it the thrill of the hunt.
An unfortunate truth of most mascaras is that they’re usually only great at one of two things—volumizing or lengthening. Few to none can do both well. You kind of have to pick what you’re looking for. My poison is length. I love a wispy fairy lash moment.
Even at the expense of volume and a perfect wear, I will buy and use a good lengthening mascara till it dries up and dies. It makes my lashes touch my eyebrows but it flakes in the humidity? Still a good mascara, I just have to respect her seasonal boundaries.
Lately I’ve been extra dedicated to finding a new Holy Grail mascara. Previously it was Maybelline Sky High, which I used as the control mascara in my review of four drugstore lash primers.
For you today, I have five new and new-to-me mascaras. None were a total shitshow, but only two of them are rebuy-worthy.
I've worn all of these to Orangetheory and they did not bleed or flake. Yes, I wear mascara to work out. Mascara, brow gel, lip balm, and SPF.
Here are my ladies:
L to R:
Tartelette Tubing Mascara, $15 to $24 (I bought the $15 mini)
Here's a snapshot of every mascara on my lashes. Keep reading for the individual reviews because some of these have formula and packaging drawbacks.
Shout out to my bare lashes for being great.
1. Armani Eyes to Kill (will re-buy)
This is my favorite of all five mascaras. I got two trial size tubes with my Sephora points, took them with me to Europe, fell in love immediately, and came home and bought the full size.
This mascara is lengthening, doesn't bleed or flake, and glides on like a dream with zero clumpage or lash-stick-togethery-ness. It's also waterproof.
Lashes are very close to touching my eyebrows! I'm showing you my bare lashes versus my mascara'd lashes on each of these reviews.
And it has a big fluffy brush instead of the trendy silicone spike design we all love but are surely getting bored with.
The wand stays relatively mess-free while still depositing the right amount of product. That's an important factor for me, as you'll see.
I do not enjoy a messy wand covered in excess product.
2. Wycon Push Up Effect (will rebuy)
This is another refreshing brush design. The wand is silicone but there's space between the rows of bristles so you can use surgical precision to lengthen those lashes.
The thinned tip of the wand is good for flaring out corner lashes. Wycon is an Italian brand and the website ships internationally. I picked up this little gem in Milan and I'll be grabbing another when I go back next month.
I can't find a product description that says whether it's waterproof, but I feel like it is.
Again, clean wand that deposits a Goldilocks amount of product. This mascara is very buildable, but if you build too much your lashes will start to stick together. The dreaded monolash.
According to TikTok, this is a dupe for the viral Macstack mascara by MAC. I haven't tried the MAC mascara, but my feelings on this one are: Not bad. I'll keep using it but I probably won't rebuy it.
The drawback here is if you use a heavy hand, you'll get some monolash action.
Here it is with a lighter hand, but more often than not, I got the above effect rather than the below so I'm showing both.
I'll continue to use it, especially because I like the curling wand shape and super dark pigment, but it's not my new favorite mascara. It's a decent cheap mascara.
It's waterproof and it says it has fibers, but as fiber mascaras go, this one doesn't have as much lengthening power as others I've tried. The wand gets a little messy because of the fibers.
I'm so sad to report that after a few uses, the top of this mascara tube became clogged with product and resulted in a super messy wand every time I pulled it out.
It's a shame because the formula is quite good and I loved it the first couple uses.
I'm still able to get a pretty, wispy effect if I clean the wand before using. That's not an optimal situation, though, so I won't rebuy.
Here's a look at the wand, which consists of densely packed silicone bristles that become caked with product.
Dear Black Radiance: You're so close! Keep the formula, but redesign the tube and potentially the wand, too.
For the price and the TikTok virality, I expected more. Yeah, my lashes look pretty, but they could be longer and wispier and less stuck together for $24 a tube.
We've got another silicone wand with tiny bristles and a cone shape. Nothing special, but definitely mess-free, which tells me it's the formula that's making my lashes stick together, not the wand.
FYI, I compared the mini size wand to the full-size wand and they are the exact same size, so this is a fair shot review. Glad I didn't buy the full size because I'll probably just use this for travel.
DM or email me if you have any Qs about these! Or if there's a mascara you think I should try. My quest continues...
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