Mascara Madness: April 2016!*

I have a dirty little beauty secret to share with you all today.....I'm obsessed with mascara! And not only obsessed, but to the point where I hoarded mascara for even up to a year if it was still working and I was loving it. I know this is completely against the makeup expiration rule and chances are the bacteria is growing massively inside the tube but I just couldn't seem to throw it away. Recently one of my beauty goals has been to rotate my mascara and stop hoarding them because in the future it could actually be a hazard to my health. I would simply rather just toss the mascara and be done with it after 3 - 6 months then hang on to it and risk something happening. However, I'm not going to do this with all of my mascara's. If the mascara doesn't smell bad, is still somewhat close to its original formula and doesn't appear to be going bad. I'm going to keep it for a little while but nowhere near the year mark!

To help me out with breaking my bad habits with mascara I've decided to create a 'Mascara Madness' series here on the blog. This series was first inspired by the lovely Kristen Gehm on YouTube who does a similar series with her own mascaras. Every 4 months, I will be rotating out old mascara's and bringing new one's into my collection. This will allow me to use up the one's I currently have and get good use out of the back up's that I've collected over the last year or so.

Let's start off with the most affordable one that I've tested out that last 4-months...

The Essence Lash Princess Mascara* can be purchased at Shoppers Drug Mart, Loblaws or Ulta, amoung a few other stores depending on where you live. This product also retails for about $5 (CA) and will be a more affordable option if you just need to pick something up in a hurry. However, I might opt for one of the other mascaras that Essence has to offer. One of the hardest parts to using this mascara was how quickly the formula dried and once it started drying how hard it was to manipulate on the lashes. While I think this provided decent volume, I feel as if this just took too much time to work with and required too much effort when others mascaras just do a better job. The other thing I noticed was even if I left some small clumps of mascara on my lashes it didn't take long in the day until this fell all down onto my face, which left me looking in the mirror all day long. I highly recommend the I <3 Extreme Mascara over this one any day!

Next on my list, is the Covergirl Super Sizer Mascara* which retails for $6 (CA). When this product was first released onto the market, everyone and they mom was trying it and many people either fell in love with it or hated it. For me the formula started out just average, providing me with long black lashes and didn't cause a lot of flaking. As the formula began to age that's where the downfall on this mascara started to happen. Within weeks the brush and the formula became extremely stiff causing this mascara to be extremely hard to transfer from the brush to my lashes. Not only was this hard to get on but when I was able to get this on it clumped my lashes together basically looking like I had four large lashes. And then the big kicker, this mascara just wouldn't come off. I tried using Micellar Water and Oil-Based Makeup Remover and nothing would take this product off. So I spent the next day twisting and picking at my lashes trying to make the mascara flake off. I would absolutely not repurchase this product and would opt for something else in the Covergirl line because I feel like they have much better mascaras.

And now that I've talked about two disappointing drugstore products, lets change the tone. The Rimmel Super Curler 24 Hour Mascara* is another option that I got to try over the last couple of months. This product retails for $6 (CA) and one of my top three from this round-up. One of the most noticable things if you have this mascara is the unusual brush which is cone-shaped and has a curve to it. Besides getting used to this brush the mascara was a really easy formula to use. With it's more wet-like texture and ability to glide onto the lashes and provide them with volume and seperation this was definitly one I reached for a lot. Another great thing I liked was while this provided my lashes with volume it also made them look fluttery and beautiful. I would absolutely repurchase this mascara in the future if I didn't have so many back-ups to get through.

If you are looking for a more mid-range brand Marcelle is a great place to start. However, I wouldn't venture and try their Marcelle Intense Volume & Multiplying Effect Mascara*. Once again this was a formula from the beginning that just didn't want to transfer on to my lashes. To the point where this only really tinted my lashes and didn't even look like I was wearing mascara. Not to mention the weir formula what product did go on my lashes didn't last very long and within a few hours I looked like a raccoon. This seemed impossible because of the little product that went onto my lashes. Over all this was probably the worst mascara I tried in this round-up. I was especually disappointed because I do really love Marcelle products and Marcelle as an overall brand.

Next up is the Clinique High Impact Mascara and spoiler alert, my favorite! I purchased this product in the Pretty Wow, Pretty Now gift set over the holidays but it can be purchased by itself for $16.50 (CA). The brush on this product is a pretty normal natural bristle brush and really doesn't appear to be anything unique or exciting. However, the brush combs through my lashes beautifully and deposits product onto the lashes in a natural but voluminous and lengthening manner. As for the formula, once again this is a more wet-like product and because of that it really glides onto the lashes. The other great thing about this mascara is that it doesn't smudge of flake around my eyes even when I've worn it for 12+ hours. I wouldn't recommend this product for the lower lashes because I do feel like I noticed transfer. However, I will certainly purchase this product in the future if I don't find something as comparable for a more affordable price.

And finally, is the most expensive and luxurious mascara I have ever tried. This is the Lancome Hyponose Star Mascara* which retails for $28.50 (CA) which seems a bit crazy for a mascara. However, this product comes with a beautiful cone shaped brush and really helps put the product on my lashes in a beautiful way. I will say that I only used this on my upper lashes a handful of times because I felt like the formula was much better suited for my lower lashes. This product gives both volume and length while being a smudge-proof and flake-proof formula. I went 12+ hours sometimes without evening looking in a mirror and when I went to remove my makeup there were no flakes of mascara anywhere on my face. I would happily purchase this product for use on my lower lashes, but for the upper lashes I much perfer the Clinique formula and application.

So as you can tell I definitly had some mascaras that were complete fails and some that were really big wins. I am going to be rotating all of these EXCEPT the Clinique High Impact and the Rimmel Super Curler mascara out of my collection and will be rotating in THREE new mascaras to review in July! I'm suepr excited to moving these products out and to be really focusing on which one's I love and which one's I don't. Once again I want to send a huge thanks to Kristen Gehm for inspiring me to do this type of series here on Embrace & Ignite and always keeping me inspired whenever it comes to makeup and beauty products!

What are some of your favorite mascaras?
Should I continue this series in the future?


* Products marked with an astrick were send to me for consideration on the blog!