little white truths

I received this travel-sized Stila mascara a while ago as a GWP, and I didn't open it until last month because I normally limit the amount of open mascaras I have to one or two: mascara goes off so quickly that it's just not worth having a bundle open because you'll wind up with heaps of waste.

I did open it alongside a second, different mascara once I tested it: it's one of those products that's too fiddly for use on the lower lashline (at least for me), so I've needed to pair it with something else to make life easier - plus the tube isn't designed well so I keep having to scrape excess bits off with another wand. More on all that below.

I'm including the above shot so you can see how much product is coating the wand (not the applicator, but the base) and also how much gets pulled up and sits on the lip of the tube with each use (and this photo doesn't show how bad it gets).

Maybe it's just an issue with this particular tube or with the travel-sized version, but the packaging isn't well-designed and I've actually had huge globs of mascara spew out of the tube, and since there's no way to push them back in, I've removed them with another wand so the product is now sitting inside the tube of the other mascara I have open at the moment.

There's the wand. Look familiar? Yes, this reminds me of Too Faced's Better Than Sex Mascara (reviewed here). They're so close in so many ways that I would call them dupes, and I'm not the first person to have said that.

My bare lashes for reference:

And again (you can see I've had issues getting product close to my lashline - I often find this with larger brushes, partly because I have hooded eyes so it's difficult to get in close without making errors):

I think the formula of this product is great, and if you love Too Faced's Better Than Sex Mascara but find it smudges on you throughout the day (this doesn't happen to me, but it's apparently a problem for many), then it's worth testing this one because I've seen that this doesn't have the same issue for those who can't wear the Too Faced product.

For me, the downside to both products is the huge brush: I personally am a lot more likely to make mistakes with a brush this size - and I can only remember one or two occasions when I haven't hit my upper eye area with both this mascara and the Too Faced product. This means I can't just reach for it whenever I want to, because I need to allow time to clean up mistakes and I don't always have that.

And of course, bigger brushes can make it harder to get product right at the base of your lashes. You can see from the above photos that I haven't managed to get the mascara as close to my lashline as I would like.

This is partly because I have hooded eyes (so the skin is closer to the lash than it is for those with standard eyes, making mascara application dicey at the best of times), but I know that many people struggle with larger brushes - no matter their eye shape - so it's worth checking this prior to purchase to see if you'll run into problems.

As for the formula itself - I think it's great. As with the Too Faced product, I only need one coat to get some good length happening, and while I've tried a second coat, one is enough for me and it starts hitting clumpy territory even with the first. 

For this reason it's helpful to have an eyelash comb (or old toothbrush) on hand to help manage the issue - and indeed I need to whip out an eyelash comb whenever I use this. Yes that's annoying, but the formula is good enough that I can overlook it.

As mentioned above, my biggest issue with this mascara is the packaging because it's already spewed out so much product that would have been lost if I hadn't caught it with another brush and put it back in the tube of the other mascara. But I haven't seen anyone else complain of this problem, so let's assume that it's an issue with either my tube or the travel-sized version, and not the full size.

All in all, this is a great product and I recommend it. I'd love to see it released with a thinner brush, but it's not the worst brush I've used and the formula is great, so I'll live with it.

Ticks from me.