Get in touch with your inner hussy
Written: Sep 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Really cheap--and inexpensive, to boot
Cons: Short shelf life
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| cwainwright's Full Review: Maybelline Great Lash Washable Mascara |
If Maybelline itself packages pots of color in uppity-M.A.C.-clone black (note to our more northerly-American cosmetic cousins: we're over it, already), why buy a marginal mascara in a tube designed to coordinate with bad golf-getups of the 1950s?
Because it's bad, baby. Real bad.
Since I began acting for actual living wages, I've made certain concessions to my profession—grudging weight maintenance, one set of (reasonably) unstained clothes for auditions and the purchase of—deep breath—high-end, M.A.C. color cosmetics. While it pains me to give props to a company whose sales staff make the Parisians look like a warm and generous people, my hat's off to the M.A.C. It works on-camera, it holds up under lights and the colors stay true all the ding-dong day. Plus, the product itself seems to last longer than others I've used, enabling me to put off those horrifying trips to the Rive Gauche that much longer.
Oh, yeah—and I get a 30% industry discount.
Still, it bakes my potato to shill for a bunch of jerks in overpriced black t-shirts—which is where Maybelline Great Lash comes in.
Great Lash isn't tasteful, trendy or even wildly effective. Its chief value is its unapologetic, pink-and-green ungainliness: it doesn't whisper quiet elegance or hold forth on efficacy; it screams bad taste. In the microcosm of the make-up bag, Great Lash is the saucy bridge-and-tunnel babe gleefully mixing it up with the glossy downtown crowd. Drop it in your purse and let the games begin. Better yet, purposefully dump it and the rest of your handbag's innards onto the counter of the ladies' room at the Four Seasons and watch the natives twitch. How much more fun can you have for four bucks?
Do professional makeup artists use it, too? Yes, they do. I've had it applied to my eyelashes quite skillfully by several highly paid professionals. (Although if my experience is any indication, not as many as Maybelline's PR department would have you believe.)
Does it look good? Well, sure—it looks fine. I mean, by definition, all mascara has to accomplish is...definition. Any dark-colored goo will do if you apply it properly. A good wand helps enormously, and Great Lash comes with a decidedly crummy one. Those make-up artists are using a fresh wand with each application. Hell, at those kit prices, they're probably buying a fresh tube for each shoot.
My preferred brand of Great Lash is water-soluble, which means contact with liquid of any type sends it streaming down my cheeks in murky rivulets. Despite said water-solubility, I find that Great Lash becomes amazingly water-resistant when it comes time to remove it. Once again, I recommend the stage actor's friend, Albolene cream (more of a petroleum jelly-like product) for comprehensive removal.
If you accept Great Lash's limitations and don't push its limits, you'll get a fine, natural look (or, with multiple applications, a fine, slutty look) for a really reasonable price. You can squeeze about three months out of a tube if you're willing to put up with some icky clumping towards the end. Four months, if you don't wear it absolutely every day.
But why be reasonable? Part of the joy of Great Lash is its carefree disposability. So knock yourself out—wait for a sale, head over to Walgreens and lay in a year's supply. Fifty-two tubes. For chump change, you get to feel like Carmela Soprano every Monday morning.
Can you buy a better mascara than Maybelline's Great Lash? Probably. But will any other mascara also provide a hearty Bronx cheer down the tastefully hushed halls of the fashion establishment?
Fuggedaboudit.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cwainwright
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Member: Colleen Wainwright
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 27
Trusted by: 29 members
About Me:
Call me 'the communicatrix.'
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