I realise I'm rather late with this one but thanks to this months Elle magazine, I am well and truly on the Benefit 'They're Real' bandwagon; sort of! I say sort of because I'm not completely sold on this mascara; I feel it's way too over-hyped and there's nothing really that special about it in my opinion. Sorry to those die-hard fans out there! Any who, I received a mini version with Elle (retailing at £9 usually!), like I said, and having used it for a week now, I thought I'd share my thoughts...
Benefit claims that this mascara 'lengthens, curls, volumises, lifts & separates lashes' with its jet black result. Now I do agree partly with this, I found it did lengthen my lashes significantly and I suppose you could say they were separated and very black but that's where it stops for me. My lashes didn't appear lifted or volumised and if anything, they appeared straighter than they were without mascara! Also, this mascara has a plastic brush, which is not my preferred choice, which did little in the way of combing my lashes and instead gave them almost a spidery appearance - not a good look at all - and I know this probably sounds odd but it almost felt as though my eyelashes were about to crumble away wearing this mascara and I think it looked that way too!
Now onto the good points as I hate to be too negative, but these are my opinions after all. I did like that the brush had smaller, fanned out bristles at the end, which made reaching the tricky inner and outer corners so much easier. I also liked that there was no fall out or smudging throughout the day and it stayed put and stayed black all day, which leads me onto another downside of this product (sorry). It's an absolute nuisance for removing, once it's on it certainly does stay put and requires some serious soaking in order to remove it which left me cautious to use it again as I felt like I was literally pulling out my eyelashes to remove it! But if you can look past that and its lack of volumising powers, then this may be the mascara for you; plus it has pretty packaging which is always a plus in my eyes! I don't hate this mascara by any means, it's definitely not the worst I've tried, it just isn't my favourite and I doubt I'll be using it again.
Benefit's They're Real mascara is available online for £19.50 (full size) at Benefit Cosmetics, as well as all Benefit counters including Boots, Debenhams.
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