Review: CoverGirl LashBlast Length Mascara

You’re on a date with a new guy.

He’s good-looking. He’s nice.

There’s nothing much wrong with him. However, there’s nothing to hold your interest either.

That’s pretty much the way I felt after my test drive of Cover Girl’s new Lash Blast Length mascara.



Meh. It’s okay.

This mascara’s promise is extremely long lashes that hold all day, and the new nylon formula boasts no-flaking.

My experience was so-so long lashes that held a few hours. However, I didn’t experience any flaking, which I usually do with mascaras. I also liked the longer brush on this one. It discovered tiny lashes, I didn’t even realize where there.

Still, I don’t think the good things about this mascara are enough to warrant a long-term relationship or even a second date.

If you’re just looking for an average daily mascara, with no bells and whistles, this will do fine. However, if you’re truly looking for longer lashes stick with Maybelline’s Lash Stiletto Ultimate Length Mascara.

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Review: CG's Exact Eyelights Mascara

I wonder if it really works?

That's the first question that popped into my head when I came across Cover Girl's Exact Eyelights mascara in the grocery store. The second? Can that mediocre-singing Rihanna (who's pictured in the display) get any cuter?

I grabbed the one for brown eyes and tossed it in my buggy, because as I've explained to Mr. PBW - if it comes from the supermarket it's not really yet another beauty product, now is it?

Anyhoo, like me, I'll bet you're dying to know if Cover Girl's eye-brightening claim is indeed true, and this mascara inspired every man I've come across while wearing it break into a chorus of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl”?

Uh...duh…um...welllll, I dunno?????

I think it makes the brown in my eyes a bit more rich and intense. Then again, that may be because I'm staring into them in the mirror when I usually don't. Can’t decide?

However, in pulling normal mascara duties this one wasn’t very impressive. It clumped. It failed to lift and separate my lashes. Then to top it off, it smudged within a half hour of application.

If you decide to go for it anyway, this mascara comes in four shades:

Black Gold – for hazel eyes
Black Sapphire – for blue eyes
Black Pearl – for brown eyes
Black Ruby – for green eyes

I paid $7.50 for it at Kroger.

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Review: Bare Naturale Luminous Lengthening Mascara

I wholeheartedly agree with one of my favorite bloggers, the oh-so-classy PCD of The Pretty Circle. You simply can’t have enough mascara. That’s why, despite having at least a dozen tubes, I didn’t think twice about tossing L’oreal’s Bare Naturale Luminous Lengthening Mascara into my shopping cart at Target the other day.

Like a lot of mascaras, this one promises noticeably longer, luminous lashes smudgeproof, flakeproof blah, blah, blah. In other words, nothing we haven’t all heard before.

What makes this one different? It also boasts shine infusing minerals, conditioning vitamins and is both fiber and paraben-free!

Cool, huh?

Well, it would be if this mascara weren’t a bit too natural. Two coats and it looked as if I hadn’t bothered putting any on. The lengthening effect was minimal, and it didn’t hold my eyelash curl. To make matters worse, an hour after application it smudged.

So while I still believe you can never have enough mascaras, I won’t be adding this one to my collection. If you do, I paid $7.50 for it at Target.

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Trash Talking

Loreal Cosmetics sure knows how to talk the big talk.

The bright yellow package of their new Loreal Voluminous Naturale mascara says it’ll give lashes natural-looking volume and perfect definition. Flip it over and it goes on to claim the mascara is smudgeproof and flakeproof.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Loreal takes beauty-boasting to a whole new level by boldly proclaiming this $7.50 mascara to be 100% clump free.

Now Loreal, there’s nothing wrong with a little trash-talking, but you’d better bring an A-game mascara.

Me? I’m giving this one an A-plus! Two coats lifted and separated my lashes and helped them hold their curl all day. No smudges, no flakes and no clumps.

Keep in mind, my goal is a natural look with a bit of oomph. Super thickening and lengthening mascaras that make a twentysomething look fabulous (uh, that would be a REAL twentysomething, not a forty-is-the-new-20something), make me look like I’m trying too hard.

The only thing I didn’t like about this mascara was the flimsy, flexible wand, but I like the product so much I can deal with it.

Loreal Voluminous Naturale mascara can be found at just about any grocery, drug or discount store.

P.S. You may have noticed Fortyisthenew20 got a makeover! If you're wondering what the book and hearts have to do with beauty, the answer is absolutely nothing. I just wanted the blog to coordinate with my revamped author website which should debut sometime next month.

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Is It Just Me?

I want to love Covergirl LashBlast Mascara.

Drew Barrymore praises it in television ads. Fashion magazine editors adore it. So do a lot of fellow beauty bloggers.

I don’t.

But you can’t dislike a product the world loves, can you?

Maybe I got a bad tube. Of course, that had to be it, I thought. So I picked up another one at a different store.

Still don’t like it.

Covergirl says: LashBlast mascara’s brush has 50-percent more bristles than the leading mascara. Every lash gets singled out and coaxed up, out and away.

My experience: While the brush is indeed dense with bristles, they’re too short to grip and separate my lashes. It went on thick and gloppy, leaving me looking more like Tammy Faye Baker than Drew Barrymore.

Anybody else ever give thumbs down on a product everyone else raves about?

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