Worst. Mascara. Ever (L'Oreal Lash Architect Waterproof Mascara)

Member Name: glitter_princess

Product:	L'Oreal Lash Architect Waterproof Mascara
Date:	25/01/09 (177 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None. Not a single one.

Disadvantages: Thick, clumpy, sticky, clumps lashes together, irritates eyes

I am not a girl who really regards mascara as an essential make-up item, so in an attempt to cut my make-up costs, I decided that mascara was the item which was going to suffer a budget cut. Trotting off to Boots, the L'oreal Lash Architect Waterproof mascara was quite literally the only mascara on the shelf at £8.99 - if only I had stopped to question why there were so many sitting there, or even read some reviews on Dooyoo before buying!

L'oreal bill this mascara as being "designed to do it all - thicken, lengthen, curl - all at the same time." However, I'm not going to hide my feelings about this one - it truly is the worst mascara I have ever had the misfortune to waste my money on.

Let's start with the best aspect of the product - the packaging. The packaging is dull - a thin blue tube with a slight sharp angle to it. Unimpressive, but not bad enough to really be a negative.

The brush however, is this product's massive failing. Unremarkable as far as mascara brushes go, no curved brush, no special gimmicks. It does have loads of bristles though, so many that when you pull the brush out it is literally covered in the mascara, picking up far too much of it, meaning that I had to wipe it on a tissue to get any kind of reasonable amount on the brush. Why wipe it on a tissue, you ask? Why not simply pull it across the lid to ensure you get less product on the brush? Let me now move on to the mascara itself...

The actual mascara is thick. Very thick. After just a day's use it had become very clumpy to the point of being unusable. Application is made really difficult by the thickness of the mascara - it clings to the lashes and pulls them together, coating three at a time, making my eyelashes look worse than before I'd applied the mascara! Even trying to sort this out with an eyelash comb didn't seem to help much, as the mascara is sticky and pulls the lashes back together. It's so sticky that during the day I could feel my top lashes sticking to my lower lashes (I only wear mascara on my top lashes) which began to irritate my eyes. Apparently the mascara contains jojoba and vitamin B5 to condition your lashes and make them glossy - I just found that I was blinking so much when wearing this, I'm sure any conditioning of them was undone by the constant blinking or rubbing.

I was also disappointed with the colour of the mascara - I like a really deep, glossy black, and this dried to a very matte finish, giving it an almost grey powdery look. It did not seem to make my lashes appear any longer, and certainly didn't curl them - I still had to use my eyelash curler to achieve this.

As for getting this one off - good luck! My Lancome eye makeup remover (which I'm normally really impressed with) really struggled to remove this and I had to be quite aggressive with it to get it off. As for the waterproof aspect, well I have to admit, it did live up to that one, having now worn it in quite heavy rain without it budging.

I really cannot recommend this mascara at all. My eyelashes look better without it and I am about to throw this away after just over a week's use. Even my boyfriend, who normally encourages me to spend less on make-up, keeps asking why I don't just throw this away - since my review is now done, into the bin it's going!

Summary: Come and experience the worst mascara on the market