The Makeup Mole

I’m breaking some rules by posting this now, but I just couldn’t wait any longer… Usually I wait at least a month when testing mascara, to make sure that it keeps performing as expected. If it’s a crappy mascara, I check that it’s still flaky/smudgy/giving me tranny lash, and if it’s a good one I like to make sure it’s not a high performer for two weeks and then a dud (which has happened before, you know).

But this guy – well it’s got me so excited I’m only halfway through the testing period and I love it more every day, so I had to tell you all. It’s the new YSL Faux Cils mascara. I’ve used Faux Cils before and liked it as the product is quite slick and allows you to build without clumpiness. But this new dude, well it’s in a league of it’s own! Whatever they’ve been doing at YSL Beaute they just need to continue right on doing it. I love everything about it.

It’s really black, so it falls into the Carbon Black mascara category, but without a hint of blue in it, which can make us fairer types look punched out. It has a lovely big brush but with lots of surface area on it, so you get to every lash. Also, unlike Diorshow (another large brushed mascara), it doesn’t get gelatinous in the tube. Honestly I have bought brand new Diorshow before and the first time out of the wand it looked like I had nuggets (yes, nuggets, it’s the only way to describe it) of road tar on them. I may as well have given my money to a homeless person for all the good it did my lashes – and then at least my karma would be shiny – so I’m no longer a Diorshow shopper.

Best of all? it’s really hard to get clumpy. The result? You get thick AND long lashes, which is super rare in one product. You can go back in and add more at the base without it getting on your lid, it stays all day, no flaking OR smudging, and the smell makes me swoon. It’s like wearing little bursts of French perfume on your lashes. What better way to start your day?

So this is my new weapon in my mascara arsenal. A word of caution though – it is beautifully easy to remove but because it’s a slippy mascara there is a lot of product on those lashes (even if it doesn’t look that way). A nice gentle makeup remover – currently I’m loving Chantecaille’s Camomile Eye Makeup Remover – and LOTS of cotton balls is the way forward. But it’s a small price to pay for dream lashes.

YSL Faux Cils in Noir Radical is available now in the UK, US and Australia.
Visit www.yslbeautyus.com for further info.

Oh how do I love thee, let me count the ways:

 1.    Your fat, squidgy brush snuggles against my lashline and oh so gently follows the curve of the lashes until, hark! All the lashes are evenly distributed with a dense, perfect pigment, and not in any way spiky, clumpy or Liza Minelli-esque. The brush itself is like Chanel Inimitable on steroids – it solves the problems of that brush by adding in an extra layer of bristles so you don’t get spiky prongs for lashes.

 2.    You don’t flake, smear or end up needing to be repaired halfway through a shoot (or a long day at work since I love you so much you are also in my personal makeup bag, which I might add is gradually improving since I shamed myself in a previous post with the sadness of my personal makeup collection).

 3.    You can be layered, for multiple coats that give full, glam lashes and not the crunchy ones that you can’t drag the wand through. (That is nasty!)

 4.    As well as brown and black you come in gorgeous colors with a hint of color, like Smoky Violine and my favourite, Smoky Marine which is amazing on blue eyes.  It’s not obvious that it’s a deep navy, it just makes blue eyes pop (fear not those who think this might be straying into Lady Di territory, it’s a deep, rich cobalt, not an electric Duran Duran turquoise).

 5.    Your packaging is exactly what we would expect in one of the greatest fashion brands ever – sleek, slick and iconic, and makes you feel like a rock star every time you pull it out.

 6.    Apparently it is an “intense volume and curl mascara”, which makes sense as thick, gorgeous lashes is what we’re all craving – it’s hard to bat your eyes seductively with a fringe that is stick straight and stumpy.

 7.    The ad, which can be viewed below is gorgeous enough to make me do pretty much anything this mascara asks. (Except maybe volunteer to talk to a clown at the circus, because I’m really scared of them).

 You really are Exceptionnel (Chanel that is)

  

 

 

Nars Black Orchid Mascara

I flat out hate this mascara (and that’s not a word I use lightly). It has a brush that looks like it escaped from 1985, and it performs so poorly compared to the rest of the NARS brand, I was quite staggered. OK, I think mascara manufacturers have gone a little OTT with all their rotating brushes, and fancy little combs, and rubber spikes and ones that look quite frankly like torture devices (hello Givenchy, I’m talking to you), but in 2009 something that low-tech just doesn’t cut it. Even Maybelline Great Lash (or Not So Great Lash as I like to call it) is fancier than this mo-fo.

In the interests of fairness, I’m just going to go and try it again: Nope, still made my eyelashes look like 5 little sticks. Its formula is thin and has an unerring ability to get at the ends of the lash and sort of clump, and then the crappy retro brush pushes your lashes together into aforementioned sticks. There is just no way to separate the lashes then to fan ‘em out and get ‘em fluffy. And we all know how much we love a full and fluffy lash!

In all honesty I wanted to love this because the square rubber packaging is so chic, and I have to admit to being a sucker for NARS in general (despite it’s excessively high price point). There’s just something about the witty names, gorgeous colors and the rubberized packaging that never seems to date that means a couple of times a year I find myself purchasing more sparkly eyeshadows and blushes I rarely use, but when I do, they make me happy (maybe because I’m actually justifying that hefty price tag? Not sure).

But this sad little mascara is one for the bin. Send it back to sing with Huey Lewis and the News – you know it wants to!

Bin it!