Makeup Staples: Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara

Just a quick one today to talk about my Holy Grail (HG) mascara which is Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara.  For years my favourite had been Clinique High Impact mascara until I tried this one early last year.  Mind blown.  I got this mascara for the first time in with one of their holiday palettes and fell in love immediately.  

My top 5 mascaras

My top 5 mascaras

My highly recommended mascaras are what I get asked about the most.  As I've said before, I don't have the best lashes for reviewing mascara as they're quite long already, fairly dark and hold a curl.  As such, mascaras aren't my favourite thing in the makeup world but I have endeavoured to compile my top 5 over the past few months, with some being long term favourites.  What I particularly look for in a mascara is for them to thicken my lashes a bit and look really dark black, not just dark grey like some do.  Another criteria I look for is that the mascara doesn't drop down on to my face throughout the day; rather than repeat it five times I will say now that none of these do that on me.

Read to to see my top 5, their wands, as well as how they look on me.

Debu(t)ary: Benefit Roller Lash mascara

Benefit Roller Lash mascara

As lots of you may already know, if you buy Elle magazine this month you get a miniature version of Benefit's Roller Lash mascara, which isn't available to buy yet.  It claims to be a super curling and lifting mascara with 94% of their testers (all 31 of them lol) claiming it made their eyes look more open.  

As I've said before, I'm not the best person to test a mascara as I have long, thick, fairly curled eye lashes but I thought I'd give it a go and give me honest opinion.

Read on for my verdict and photos with/without it.

A Guide to Primark Mascaras

The 5 Primark mascaras

As far as I am aware, Primark sell 5 mascaras (plus occasionally a waterproof version of the Volumising Ultra Black).  I wondered how they differed in brush and formula so thought I'd give them all a go.  It wasn't too frivolous seeing at they 5 came to a grand total of £9.50.

I must say that I'm probably not the best person so road-test mascaras as I do have naturally great eye lashes.  They are long and have no problem holding a curl, plus it's very rare that they ever transfer down on me after the initial application and clean up.

Also, I should have taken photos of the mascaras without eyeshadow etc on but that would mean removing my makeup at least twice in a day and I have sensitive eyes so didn't want to do that.  So, sorry but you have to see past the rest of the makeup.

Whole Face with One Brand: Tarte

Using all Tarte products

Tarte is an echo-friendly brand with beautiful, natural shades and cute packaging.  They arrived in the UK not too long ago via QVC.  While I haven't purchased anything that way yet I was lucky enough to have an aunt bring me some Tarte products from the US at Christmas.  I don't have a large amount by the brand so thought it would be a fun challenge for my Whole Face with One Brand series.

5 Looks with the Naked 3

I've heard some friends say that they loved the look of Urban Decay's Naked 3 palette but that they weren't sure how to use it.  I have been loving it for a few months now so I have devoted the last week to the palette, coming up with looks for this post.

I think it's an easy palette to use.  Strange is the perfect highlighting colour for under the brow and around the tear duct.  It's hard to go wrong if you stick to the general idea of lighter colour over the lid, darker colour in the outer V and blended out with a mid-tone into the crease.  That's been the base for most of these looks.

For all of these looks I used either Urban Decay Primer Potion, original formula, or MAC's Paints in Sublime Nature.  I used Too Faced's Better Than mascara in most, if not all, of the looks.  My brows throughout are filled with Illamasqua Brow Cake in Thunder.  The double-ended brush that comes with the Naked 3 is quite good but I feel like you need a good blending brush and maybe a little smudger/pencil brush too.