MY biggest beauty pet peeve is clumpy lashes – it ruins the “clean girl” aesthetic TikTok is so fond of, and makes make-up look dirty.
So this week I’ve ditched my normal volumising mascara in favour of minimal, lengthening formulas and put three to the test . . .
Budget
H&M Beauty Never Ending Lash Lengthening mascara, (£8.99, hm.com): I didn’t know what to expect from the new H&M beauty range, created in collaboration with Zendaya’s make-up artist Raoul Alejandre.
After trying the lot, I think this might be my favourite item from the range.
It lengthens and separates lashes so people will be questioning how your lashes are so long rather than what mascara you are wearing.
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Unfortunately, I found it smudges around my eyes within a couple of hours, but if you don’t usually worry about panda eyes it’s worth trying.
Mid-range
No7 Extreme Length mascara (£12.95, boots.com): Normally lengthening mascaras have quite thin, tapered brushes that drag lashes upwards for the lengthening effect, so the large bristle brush here was an immediate red flag with this one.
Sadly, the formula didn’t win me over either.
I found it quite dry, which I can see being helpful if you have an unsteady hand as it will lead to fewer mistakes, but I found it didn’t evenly coat my lashes so I ended up with a fair few clumps.
It’s a shame, as I love some of the other No7 mascaras. But this one didn’t live up to my expectations.
Luxury
Merit Clean Lash Lengthening Tubing mascara (£28, meritbeauty.com): Initially, I wrote this off as I thought the formula was too wet and was sure to smudge.
I could not have been more wrong.
It’s a tubing formula, which means it coats lashes in a film of mascara that, once dry, doesn’t move – yet can still be removed with water at the end of the day.
I love the luxe packaging, and while the brush is larger than I’d normally like, the stopper in the bottle ensures there’s no clumps or flaking.
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Hands down the best mascara I’ve used in a long time.
Pick of the week
IF you thought you had to wait until Black Friday for top beauty deals, think again.
From tomorrow, QVC and Elemis have teamed up to create a saving of £149 on six full-sizes products in the Elemis Pro-Collagen Face & Body Gift of Great Skin Collection, £65.95 – which is only £3 more than the Pro-Collagen Marine cream alone.
Shop from November 6-12 at qvcuk.com.