Holy Grail Found: Marc Jacobs Mascara

Happy new year folks and welcome to my first post of the year.

Angel music plays… at the end of 2016, I fell in love with the Marc Jacobs cosmetics packaging and inadvertently bought the most incredible mascara. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I believe in this case you can. So many high-end mascaras promise luxury, beauty and glamour with their packaging, but leave me feeling disappointed, so let me save you a tube of broken promises and a lot of money.

Velvet Noir Major Volume Mascara

Marc Jacobs

This is the ultimate, holy grail mascara. I have tried literally hundreds of mascaras and have found some that come close and I thought the mascaras listed below were the creme de la creme, but this Marc Jacobs gem is my favourite. It is lash building, lengthening and staying mascara by a mile. The formula is very heavily pigmented, thick and smooth texture: just enough for volume without any clumps. The wand itself is the perfect thickness and texture for all lengths of lashes, including those very short ones on the bottom.

Why I love Marc Jacobs Velvet Noir Major Volume Mascara:

• Blackest of blacks – high levels of opaque pigment
• Smooth and creamy consistency
• Brush as short bristles to ensure a clean, “dot-free” application
• Creates loads of volume
• Lengthens even the shortest of fine lashes
• Gorgeous packaging
• Moderate high-end pricing ($38 AUD from Sephora)

The packaging is sleek and stylish, as you would expect from a fashion house.

At the end of the day there was minimal fall out, and it was a little hard to remove, due to the pigment levels, so I used the Jurlique Purely Age-Defying Nourishing Cleansing Oil  ($50AUD) massaged into the area (carefully so as not to get in my eyes). I will be doing a post about cleansing oils and why I use them over soap in my skincare routine.

I compared it with the following products:

Inimitable Mascara by Chanel

$54.00 AUD

While this mascara is adequate, it’s not $54 AUD amazing. It covers OK, but the pigment levels are not massively high, so you need to apply 3 – 4 times for fuller lashes. The brush is OK but I prefer softer brushes. I love the packaging as it is Chanel, but bang-for-buck, there are other mascaras that are better for a much lower price point. If you love Chanel and like the logo on your dressing table then it isn’t bad, just not what I was hoping.

Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara

$42.00 AUD

While I like the formulation of this mascara, the brush is horrible. The spikes literally hurt when applying close to the lash line so with my short little lashes this was every stroke of the wand. They did not consider this in the development and I feel as if it was a major oversight. I like that these spikes go around the wand so you can get the lower lashes, but I really do not like the spiky wand. It does a good job, but please Benefit NPD, change the wand!

Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara

$33.00 AUD

I have to put this extremely close to the Marc Jacobs mascara. They call this wand shape the “hourglass” and I really like mascaras with this shape as they curve along the lash line making for a quick and easy application with loads of product. The colour is very black, and you only need 2 coats for luscious lashes. I also adore the packaging in a pink metallic tube with embosses branding. Too Faced products are a rare breed of girly packaging with quality products and professional quality formulations, in the same league as Benefit and Urban Decay for whimsical branding concept and packaging.

Lash Sensational By Maybelline

$21.95

For  chemist and supermarket product I was in love with this before the Marc Jacobs mascara. The wand is the perfect shape to apply along the lash line close to the roots without the “dotting” that applies with the bigger wands. Despite being a plastic moulded wand, application wasn’t spiky or painful. The formulation is almost as good as the Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara, and the packaging is pretty for a chemist/supermarket brand.

Nude By Nature Allure Defining Mascara

$27.95 AUD

Featured image courtesy of peekandponder.com

Let me know your thoughts…