Battle Of The Lashes #2: Do Expensive Mascaras Work Better?

I love mascaras, but sometimes the bold claims just don't live up to your expectations. I've previously done another mascara showdown which displayed the pros and cons of mascaras from £3 to £19.50, and now I'm topping it by showing twice the amount ranging from £6.99 up to £25 with surprising results that prove that the price tag isn't everything. I'm showing them all in price order to show you how wide the range is in price difference!

Rimmel Volume Shake £6.99
I've recently reviewed this mascara and said that the bristles could be longer but the shake up gimic impressed me. It comes in the cutest cocktail shaker packaging and formula worked well for me. If the wand itself was improved I'd start using this more often.

L'Oréal False Lash Superstar X Fiber £7.99
This is my joint favourite mascara, with it being a double-ended product with the second part adding small fibers to add length and volume. Whilst I hadn't previously tried a fiber mascara and was dubious about the actual fibers themselves, these haven't ended up in my eyes yet so I'm pretty damn impressed.

Revlon 3D Volume (Discontinued)
I took the photos for this post before I did a quick Google search and realised that this is discontinued. I'm not too sad however, as the bristle didn't give me the '3D Volume' I was expecting.

Revlon Ultimate All In One £9.99
Revlon brought out a year or two ago, a new set of mascaras that were tailored to different areas you wanted to target, and within the range they brought out an 'all in one' version. Although I love Revlon as a brand, I don't like how tiny the wand is. It feels like it takes forever to apply and for volume I use wands with long bristles on to really get the product onto my lashes.

Maxfactor False Lash Effect £10.99
This mascara claims it has up to 50% more bristles for 'never ending volume' and I'm not overly mad at this. It definitely has a ton of bristles but they aren't long enough to add enough volume in my opinion. It doesn't give me a false lash look but the formula lasts all day and looks just as good as when you first applied it.

No7 Lovely Lashes £12.95 This is my 'natural lash' mascara for days when I don't want to wear makeup but still want to have visible lashes. It's the only mascara in a different colour as it's in Brown/Black which looks more natural. It doesn't add a ton of volume which is fine by me as the name suggests a more natural look.
Tarte Lights Camera Flashes I bloody love the bones out of Tarte but I really do not like this mascara. The packaging is very unique which I adore, but the mascara itself is lacklustre and makes my eyes water because the spiky bristles poke me in the eye. I've kept this mascara purely for comparison in posts like this.
Too Faced Better Than Sex Waterproof £19 I had previously tried the non-waterproof version of this mascara and loved it but even with an eye primer it seemed to end up underneath my eyes and just underneath my brow bone so I thought when it came to getting the full version I may as well try the waterproof version. Definitely the right decision and it is one of my favourites.
Urban Decay Perversion £19 This was the first mascara that I tried that really made me say oh wow. The first time I tried it I used the Subversion Primer too and fell head over heels for the combination. I ran out of the primer and recently rebought the mascara alone and it works almost as well as with the primer. 
Illamasqua Masquara Gain £20 This is another mascara I've reviewed and I genuinely love it. You'll see a pattern of big fluffy wands = nice lashes for me but for a while it overtook other mascaras on my list until it unfortunately ran out. 
Benefit They're Real £20.50 When I first started using They're Real I was over the moon with it as the wand really separates the lashes, but I found that the formula made my lashes feel odd. The formula sticks to the lashes and makes it a bit hard to remove which is great if you need it to last all day. 
Dior Diorshow Blackout Waterproof £25 The most expensive mascara on the list but not my favourite. The wand is pretty big and gets every lash which I love but the length isn't quite how I'd like it because of the stubby wand shape. All in all it's a good mascara but there are others I prefer.

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Illamasqua Metamorph Range

Illamasqua is a brand that's new to me, so when the Metamorph range recently came out I was intrigued to try it out. The idea behind Metamorph is the celebration of the evolution of nature and its seasonal rejuvenation. Glowing, fresh skin and defined brows, embracing natural beauty through makeup. The collection aims to unite colour with technology within makeup essentials and I'll be reviewing three products from the collection. All the products from the Metamorph collection are available at Illamasqua Stores including the one in Liverpool's Metquarter and from Illamasqua.com.

The Brow Build (£18.50)* is essentially a brow gel that boosts brows and adds definition and depth. They come in four shades: Rise (Soft Blonde), Flow (Warm Brown), Thrive (Medium Brown) and Amplify (Deep Slate Grey). I opted for Rise just in case the other shades were too dark for me. Luckily it's darker than my Mac brow gel and blends in really well underneath my Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz. The wand is thicker than I was expecting but the product looks like its adding tiny fibers onto your brows helping them look fuller.

Masquara Gain (£20.00)* was created to bring volume and length to the lashes whilst defining the individual lashes at the same time. Another intriguing factor was that the Masquara aims to tint the lashes progressively due to the Walnut extract that acts as a natural dye for the lashes. The colour is jet black and you're supposed to see 'improved colour intensity' after 2 weeks, even when the lashes are bare. My lashes are naturally blonde and I did notice them gradually getting a bit darker but only to an ash brown shade. The brush is really thick which I love because you can get to the root and curl the lashes upwards for a more feminine look. The product didn't clump on my lashes nor did it break off after a long time wearing it. I've actually moved into my permanent mascara draw as it's just the mascara I've been looking for.

Finally, the Vital Palette (£34.00)* is a quad set of eyeshadows that all matte which instantly made me want to swatch it before I took photos. Illamasqua says they are highly pigmented that provide a high performance colour pay-off and I have to agree. Although my swatches aren't the best, as the shade Bubbles (Warm Peach) doesn't look particularly bright on my hand, with a primer beneath it you can see the pigmentation a lot better. I'm in love with the shades Envision (Warm Brown) and Trace (Cool Grey Brown) as they work so well with multiple eye looks. They blend seamlessly into the crease and look beautiful beneath the lower lashes too. For the outer-v, Drop (Deep Mid Brown) is a gorgeous chocolatey brown that works well with both cool and warm toned shades. 
As a quad the colours work really well together and you could really finish off the look by adding another product in the Metamorph collection: the Beyond Powders (£32.00) in either OMG (Champagne) or Epic (Warm Bronze). There are two nail varnishes in the collection called Nail Veil (£14.50) in Breathe (Pale Pink) and Bamboo (Pale Peach) which really suit the collection well, bringing out your natural beauty.

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