Lancôme & Chanel Battle It Out for Best Mascara

I love mascara.

It’s the one thing, beauty wise, that I won’t leave the house without and I’ve acquired quite a collection of silver tubes this year.

Dior was my go-to brand before people started sending me tubes of black goop on a weekly basis. It was hard to be adventurous before, because it’s nuts to drop $20 on something you may put on your eyes, hate, and then have to throw away, but now that it’s landing on my desk for free, sure, I’ll give it a shot.

I’ve used five different mascaras in the past five days, and I thought a clear winner had emerged until a last minute contender made for a close tie.

Dior. Dior Iconic was my favorite, before that Dior Show. It’s dramatic, almost clumpy, and I had no problem wearing it during the day and throwing on a few extra coats at night. It’s not the easiest to get off, but a couple of extra swipes of Neutrogena’s eye makeup remover and it’d be gone. Volume won out over length thanks to a super thick brush and it’s almost too heavy to wear on the bottom lash. It’s $27

MAC. I used to use MAC in high school, when they had two mascara options and I balked at $13. The Plush Lash is part of their Tabloid collection and it makes my eyes look like spiders. I should say that I already have pretty thick lashes, so if you need serious help with volume this may be a good bet. I, however, will save it for Halloween.

Estée Lauder. This is the only waterproof mascara I tried, and I should preface this by saying that I hate waterproof mascara. (If I put makeup on, I want to be able to get it off and I probably aged my eyes a year by scrubbing this off.) But it smelled good, and it made my lashes super thick. It’s $19.50.

Chanel. After they sent me a tube of their Inimitable mascara I was hooked. I probably talked about it every day for a week. Then the tube ran out and I went to buy more. When I found out it was going to be $33 with tax I laughed and vowed never to spend that much on mascara. Then I went home and tried out all of these other ones I’m writing about, and went back to buy the Chanel. It’s an obscene amount of money to spend on make-up, but it’s the best mascara I’ve ever used.

*Lancôme. * Chanel’s Inimitable was the best mascara I’d worn up until I bought Lancôme’s High Définicils last night. I ran to Bloomingdale’s after work and the woman behind the counter rolled her eyes, “We’re always sold out of that.” So then I had to have it. Found it at Sephora and pulled out the spiky little rubber wand this morning. My eyelashes are impossibly long. They’re not super thick, but they’re probably more day/80° weather appropriate. It wins, just because I feel better spending $27 instead of $33.