Saturday, August 22, 2009

HG mascara search and comparison . . .


As some of you may already know, I have been searching for my HG (holy grail) mascara for quite some time. I need a mascara than adds some volume and length but most importantly, I need one that lasts. I don't know if it's because I have combination skin or the fact that I have occasional eye allergies that cause me to blink a lot when they're acting up, but many mascaras I've tried (budget and high end) end up underneath my eyes by midday. Not the look I'm going for.

In the past, Covergirl Marathon waterproof mascara (green tube) was almost my HG mascara. It lasted all day and provided separation (no clumps), but that was about it. Nothing in the way of a dramatic false lash effect whatsoever. Then one day it disappeared from my local stores never to be seen again. Was it discontinued? I don't know. Perhaps so many new products came out (Lash Blast and the like) that the stores had to remove mascaras that weren't selling as well. So my search continued.

That's when I re-discovered Max Factor 2000 Calorie waterproof mascara. It has the "old school" bristles that I like and it provides volume, length and it lasts all day. The one drawback I see is that products tends to get thick fairly soon after opening for the first time compared to other mascaras.

Then a friend told me about Max Factor's Volume Couture mascara. She had used it in the past and then for some reason started trying several others in different price points. She went back to it and realized that it was her HG mascara all along. So I decided to give it a try in the waterproof formula. I also tried the Max Factor Lash Perfection at the same time. The ingredients are identical (and they both have those new plastic bristles) but the Volume Couture costs about $.60 more since it has more product in the bottle. Yay, no clumps, nice length, volume and separation and...it lasts all day! And I'm getting used to the newfangled bristles.

Sadly, I recently read that Max Factor isn't going to be sold in the U.S. starting in early 2010. What?!? I finally find my HG mascara and you're going to take it away from me? So I decided to do a google search of the ingredients and discovered that Proctor and Gamble (the manufacturer of both Max Factor and Covergirl), released Covergirl Lash Blast under the name Max Factor False Lash Effect in Europe. This got me curious so after digging a bit further, I found that Covergirl Lash Exact and Covergirl Last Blast have the identical ingredients that my beloved Max Factor mascara has. I'm going to purchase a tube of Last Exact (Lash Blast's brush is just too gargantuan for my taste) and give it a try. I'll post my results here in the future. Wish me luck!



Ingredients: Petroleum Distillates, Polyethylene, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Copernicia Cerifera Wax (Carnauba), Trihydroxystearin, Propylene Carbonate, Pentaerythrityl Hydrogenated Rosinate, Tall Oil Glycerides, Panthenol, Propylparaben, Tocopheryl Acetate, Phenoxyethanol, Tocopherol, May Contain (+/-): Iron Oxides, Ultramarines, Titanium Dioxide

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