The Impossible Dream: My Quest for The Best Mascara

 

I had been searching for the perfect mascara for somewhere between two years and my entire life. Sure, I’d spent some time with Covergirl Lash Exact and L’Oreal Voluminous, but it wasn't anything serious. Looking for more excitement, I had an expensive one-tube fling with DiorShow, who’s fluffy brush was dramatic, luxurious, and unwieldy. Eventually, and without actually deciding, it became my quest to find the best mascara.

Most of my candidates were purchased from the drugstore or Target: Volume Exact, Lash Stiletto, Telescoping-Lash-Explosion-Something, and any number of new formulas with brightly colored, complicated, plastic brushes. Others were from Sephora. Make Up Forever’s Smokey Lash comes to mind, as well as three varieties by Tarte that I got as freebies. I can’t even remember all the free mini mascaras I tested thanks to Sephora’s Beauty Insider program. Nothing was good enough. I tried each new product a couple of times before restlessly moving on.

Then one day, I was in Sephora looking for a new mascara I had read about (I read about mascara) and a sales associate told me she hadn’t heard of that particular product, but she could show me the best mascara in the store. DO TELL. She said she’d tried a million, since she had an employee discount, and her absolute favorite was Buxom. She also told me about Sephora’s awesome return policy, which I can’t believe I didn’t know about, so it was a risk-free purchase. I bit. At $18, it was about $10 more than most drugstore brands, but hardly high-priced as far as the more upscale brands go. And I could return it if I didn’t like it. I had nothing to lose.

Now, I too can say this is the best mascara I’ve tried. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I bought a second tube when the first one ran out. The color is rich. It doesn’t flake or smudge. It makes your lashes, somehow, organized. Almost like false eyelashes or not-creepy doll eyes. It lengthens like crazy! And it has tiny little bristles on the edges of the brush to get every single lash. One thing that is absolutely necessary: tap the flat tip of the brush on a tissue before application to get the excess product off. After that, you can coat just the tips of your lashes to get extra length, followed by a full sweep. You can go back over them if you have any tangles, and it doesn’t get gunky. Plus, it’s free of parabens, sulfates and phthalates, which is great, even though this stuff is so good I would pretty much use it no matter what.