Benefit They're Real mascara - A review

If you've read my blog posts before you'll know that when it comes to make-up, mascara is my holy grail product.  My eyes are small, and my eyelashes are stubby, and without mascara I pretty much look like a little mole who has just seen sunlight for the first time.

I've dabbled with other mascaras in the past, but I have a firm old faithful in Maxfactor's 2000 Calorie.  I love that mascara ... nothing volumises and lengthens my little stubbies like the 2000 Calorie, and because of this, I can be pretty dismissive of most other mascaras on the market.  If people recommend products to me, I'm out there in Boots before I've even reached the bottom of the blog post, but with mascara it just doesn't happen.

I've seen a LOT of stuff on the internet about Benefit's You're Real mascara.  It has got some impressive rave reviews from heavyweight bloggers, but the £19.50 price tag has always put me off.  My 2000 Calorie is £6.99, so in my head I'm thinking I don't want to get attached to something more than twice the price.  Ignorance can sometimes be bliss with these mega expensive products.

But then a girl I work with started using it, and she is a bit of a mascara junkie too.  And then she bought a mini sample in for me....and it was all over.

When I first pulled the mascara wand out, I was like "oh hi plastic comb type brush, I can tell we are not going to get on already".  I have a bit of a hatred for plastic comb type brushes as I just never find them volumising, and I never think they load my lashes as much as I want.  But as I started using it, I couldn't deny that this little plastic comb wand was GOOD.  It didn't take too long to build up a decent coverage, but the thing I loved about this was that it somehow managed to volumise but keep my lashes nicely separated.  The result was that my lashes looked really "pretty" and fluttery.  It was a lash effect that, I'll be honest, I'd never managed to achieve before.  They were thick and black but still delicate.

Soooo a full size purchase was made and I happily parted with my £19.50 safe in the knowledge I was now going to be a fluttery eyelash girl.

But a fluttery eyelash girl I am not.  I can hands down say that this mascara turned out to be SUCH a disappointment.  I am not quite sure what happened - whether the sample was a slightly different formula (unlikely) or whether the larger mascara dried out quicker - but either way, this mascara went on SO badly.

It is so hit and miss!  I start applying it and I'm starting to get my fluttery lashes and then bam! I have three eyelashes left.  You know the effect I mean, where the mascara sticks all your lashes together and however much you wiggle that damn wand and try and separate them out, you're left with just three spikey lashes.  It's how my lashes go if I cry with mascara on and I hate it.  The first time this happened I was thinking maybe I went in too heavy handed.  The second time it happened I thought maybe I still had to practice my application a bit.  But this literally happens 95% of the time that I use this mascara.  I do get right into the root of the lashline and wiggle wiggle wiggle with my wand, but those damn lashes wont separate out. It also dries quite quick and once it is dry it goes so rigid that you cannot go in with any more coats.  Once it is dry it's all over.  I'm pretty sure that die hard fans of this mascara will be muttering away about bad application, and yes, it could very well be that.  But I'm not a rich little lady, and I can't keep whacking out £19.50 to practice with a mascara that just ain't doing it for me.

The tricky thing is, if you're reading this and trying to decide whether to buy it, I'd have to say you need to buy one and give it a go, because products like these don't get cult followings for nothing.  But if you try it and you end up with three crispy lashes then you're not alone, you can join my club (and maybe go out and buy the 2000 calorie!).

All about eyeliner

Since I last blogged, the eye products in my makeup bag have undergone a bit of an overhaul.  It wasn't intentional.  Up until about a couple of months ago, I was more than happy using my faithful old Maybelline gel eyeliner pot with my Zoeva fine liner bent brush.  Yes, my eyeliner sometimes went on better some days compared to others, but I just figured that was how eyeliner worked. 

Then I purchased a magazine...aaaand it came with a free Eyeko skinny liquid eyeliner.  I didn't buy the magazine for the eyeliner and I didn't really have any intention of using it, but that little cosmetics freak inside me couldn't help but have a little intrigued "ooo what's this".

 

So, here is the Eyeko Skinny liner photographed above and you can see it is (dum dum dummmm) a felt tip pen.  Traditionally, I've been a massive snob towards pen eyeliners.  I think they dry out wayyyy too quickly, and I used to use one back in sixth form before I (after years of practice) mastered a gel eyeliner.  In my head they were something you used if you hadn't yet graduated to the world of gel eyeliner.  and I had.

 

First things first, I just want to say that I wasn't impressed with the Eyeko liner.  I'd have ben gutted if I had actually spent money on it, and safe to say it's currently mooching around somewhere at the bottom of my make up box, probably never to be seen again.

 

But it was the ease of application that took me by surprise.  The nib was tapered to a very thin point and had a good mix between sturdy and flexible, meaning I could get right into my lash line and achieve a good even thin line.

 

The second thing I loved about this was how fuss-free it was.  The lazy little hobbit inside me absolutely loved that there was no brush cleaning needed.  I hate cleaning my eyeliner brushes.  I'm always in a rush and there's that annoying point where you're like "damnit I need to clean it so the bristles don't splay, but wow I can't be bothered."  The pen had none of this.  It had a lid, and lids I can do.

 

Downsides of this eyeliner though, in my opinion, was the major problem that this dried out...constantly.  My first eye would be all strong, black, inky line and then my second eye would literally be like "hello?"  You know when you were a kid and your felt tip pens ran out and went all faded before you'd finished colouring in your picture?  Well this is what this eyeliner was like. Every. Time.  The next day when I'd come back to it, the 'ink' (I call it ink, I mean the eyeliner) was flowing fine again, but one eye down and we're back to a pathetic faded line.  Not good.  I'm not sure if it's because mine was a free sample, but either way, I thought this was bad.

 

But nevertheless, it peaked my interest and less than a few days later and oh hello!

 

 

Enter into my life, the L'Oreal Super Liner Perfect Slim.  I'd seen this given glowing reviews by Youtube make-up gurus such as Tanya Burr, so I thought I'd give it a punt.  At £5.99 it wasn't a bank breaker.

 

And oh my, I can now stand up and proudly say I am a felt tip eyeliner convert.  This liquid eyeliner is so good.  You can see (sort of) from the photo that the nib is quite long, tapered to a very fine point and I can confirm it is the perfect mix of sturdy and flexible.

 

I find this such a breeze to apply.  The nib gets right into the lash line and gives such a fine line that you can do a really subtle eyeliner effect that I haven't really ever managed with the gel eyeliner.  Yes, this does do that annoying pen eyeliner thing, where it spits out tiny 'branches' sometimes where you have eye wrinkles or creases, but its massively improved on the old pen eyeliners I used to use and it's barely noticeable.

 

The intensity of the colour is awesome, and this pen hasn't dried out on me once.  It's still going strong and I bought it over a month ago.  You don't get any of that frustrating brush splaying that you get with gel eyeliner, and no cleaning!! Hoorah!

 

I recently introduced by Mum to liquid eyeliner and she started off with the gel eyeliner and found it so difficult to control.  I bought her one of these and she loves it, so I'd definitely recommend this product to both the seasoned professional and to the beginners out there.   I don't think it will stop me using gel eyeliner as sometimes you just need that gel effect, but it's definitely a fantastic alternative and so much quicker and easier.  If you're a gel convert I'd implore you to give it a go, you may surprise yourself.