Amazing brush, shame about the mascara itself. (Givenchy Phenomen'Eyes)

Member Name: BeautyGeek

Product:	Givenchy Phenomen'Eyes
Date:	20/05/09 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brush is innovative, will give you a beautiful false lash effect

Disadvantages: Smudges like you couldn't possibly fathom for such a pricey bit of gear!

Givenchy have been given quite a lot of credit for designing the brush that's the main attraction of this mascara. I'd agree with the hype and say that the brush is definitely brilliant and effective - when showing it to a male friend recently (who knows nothing about make-up) he said 'why aren't all mascaras that shape?' which is a good point! I think in time this style of brush will take over; L'oreal have jumped on the bandwagon already.

I read about this mascara a while ago and wanted to try it, but being someone who buys a new mascara pretty much every week, I waited a while until I'd made a bit of progress with my ever-growing batch. I finally got around to trying it and was massively impressed with the results of the brush, however, not so much the mascara itself.

The brush is a round globe like shape with spikes coming out of it. All the spikes get coated in mascara and so you can easily apply it to every lash. You can do this by using it at any angle which makes application to tiny lashes much easier. With bigger brushes, to get to the small lashes you need to go at them with the brush facing your eye, rather than horizontally along your eye, which puts you at risk of touching the eyelid itself with the brush. This is especially unhelpful as the tip of the brush is where a lot of mascara tends to collect, so the risk is really smudgy, badly applied mascara. This mascara has almost eradicated that risk (unless you're very heavy handed) which means you can truly get stuck in to every tiny little lash available. The result is a lovely, fanned out look and a few people have asked me what fake lashes I use when wearing this which gives you an idea of how handy the wand is.

However.......the mascara itself is very poor. For such an expensive mascara (around £18) you'd expect a high grade mascara that wouldn't cause many problems. But this mascara smudges at the most astonishing rate. Within an hour of application I have black smudges all the way around my eye are, including just below my eyebrow from where the lashes hit the skin. This is the sort of thing I would expect from a really cheap mascara, which is why I tend to avoid them.

I get the feeling that the makers didn't feel the need to put much effort into the mascara itself, having had such a breakthrough with the brush. This made the whole experience of using it very disappointing.

I absolutely love this brush, so much so I've even been toying with the idea of drying it off and using it in other mascaras to try and get the best of both worlds. However I definitely won't be buying this mascara again purely and simply because it's such poor quality. I figured it would only be a matter of time before other brands brought out something similar, and as I mentioned earlier, L'Oreal have, so I bought one of theirs today and will be trying it out tomorrow.

The packaging is pretty, as you'd expect from Givenchy. It comes in a small black cylinder with a chrome lid that has the Givenchy logo carved into it. It's a very attractive addition to anyone's make up bag.

Removal is easy (assuming there's any left to remove and you haven't smudged it all away.....) and it comes off nice and quickly with any standard eye make up remover.

So in summary, the brush is amazing and the mascara itself is terrible. I was truly shocked at how much it smudged as I've used so many far cheaper mascaras which have been much better at staying put. I don't wear contacts, my eyes don't water and I don't have particularly oily eyes so it can only be an issue with the mascara formula. Only buy if you can really afford it; if you can't then try the alternatives first.

Summary: Should be much better quality mascara for such a high price.