Mascaras are no longer new in the beauty world today. They are small-sized cosmetic tools that can add an ‘oomph’ to your lash look, as they define your lashes. So what does mascara do for you? Simply put, it lengthens and volumizes the lashes (depending on the formula)
Consider mascara to be the finishing touch to your makeup routine—it goes on after your eyeshadow, eyeliner, and any other eye makeup you’re wearing and completes your look. There is more to mascara and we would dive quickly into the details.
What Are The Benefits of Using Mascara?
Mascaras can be the game-changing makeup application in your routine. They can give the extra va-va-voom impact on your makeup routine needs. What makes mascaras tick? Why have they become a staple in many cosmetic routines?
Mascaras come in a tube-like bottle with a wand having a brush tip. The mascara wand is immersed in a specially formulated liquid that is used to coat the lashes to give a thicker lash.
- Mascaras give you thicker-looking lashes. The specially formulated liquid makes the lash appear thicker than it already is.
- Mascaras can give you falsie-like lashes. Using a great formula can give full thick lashes that make it look like you got eyelash extensions on.
- Mascaras give a full lift and curl to your lashes and give a wide-awake look.
- Depending on your mascara formula, some have lash-boosting ingredients to help nourish and strengthen your lashes.
How Can Mascara Improve The Appearance Of Eyelashes?
Around the world, thick, dark lashes are seen as a sign of attractiveness. Mascara darkens, defines, and gives the appearance of thicker lashes. A few strokes of mascara, which is a cheap and simple beauty product, can improve your appearance more than any other cosmetic
The effects of Mascara are based on its ingredients.
What Are Mascaras Made Of?
Here’s a look at what’s inside your mascara tube.
Mascara’s ingredients typically include:
A carbon black or iron oxide pigment to darken lashes.
A polymer to form a film that coats lashes; this is to keep the black pigment on the lashes as a covering.
Thickening waxes or oils such as lanolin, mineral oil, paraffin, petrolatum, castor oil, carnauba wax, and candelilla wax.
And of course, preservative, to prevent your mascara from becoming a breeding ground for germs, making it safe for use.
This is the basic ingredient within the mascara and it can vary depending on the type of Mascara. And it is always important to know the ingredient of your mascara to know which is safe for use and which should be avoided.
Types of Mascara and What They Can Do
How effective a mascara depends on the type of mascara you are purchasing. To better know what mascaras can do, we would look at the ingredient makeup of the mascara and the mascara wand usually attached to them. These are some of the categories of mascaras available on the market.
Volume Building Mascara
This type of Mascara gathers up more thickness around the lash hairs. By making use of wax, silicone polymers, and pigments, volume mascara thickens and adds volume to your eyelashes. The appearance of the lashes becomes darker creating the illusion of more volume
Curl Defining Mascara
It’s easier to achieve a curlier-looking lash using curling mascara. It comes with a curvy brush that sweeps through your lashes to better enhance the curl of your lashes.
Curling mascara has a thicker consistency with filming polymers that contract after use and curl your lashes.
Lash Lengthening Mascara
A lengthening mascara can lengthen your natural lashes. Whether your lashes are long, short or sparse; your lashes can greatly benefit from this kind of mascara. The polymers used in lengthening mascara are polymer particles that adhere to the tips of the lashes, elongating the lashes.
The mascara wand brush used with lash lengthening mascara often possesses broad bristles that enable a thick layer of mascara to be applied to the lashes.
Waterproof Mascara
This is a kind of mascara that makes use of special waxes and oils for a super strong hold of pigment that can resist water. Waterproof mascaras are usually more stubborn to remove at the end of the day and should be used sparingly and not as heavy coats as they can dry out the eyelashes.
Waterproof mascaras should be removed at the end of the day and never slept with.
Clump From Mascara
Clump-free mascaras are specially designed to avoid that spidey coated look often seen with mascara coating. This type of mascara does an excellent job of using film polymers that properly surround the lash hair in a tube-like a form. This forms a second skin on the lashes with no clumpy residue.
Mascara Formulas and What They Can Do
Mascaras can either be water-soluble formulas or emulsions of water and oil. The Non Water formulas tend to be more waterproof and are more difficult to remove from the eyelashes.
The water formulas are easier on the lashes and are easier to wash and remove. When you see mascara brands boast of washable mascara, you should know that’s a water-based formula.
Mascara formulas are not just what determines what you can get from a mascara, how well you can apply the mascara is equally important to make it last longer.
Can Mascaras Do More Damage Than Good?
Yes, your mascara can do more damage than good if it contains ingredients that can cause irritations.
Back in the day, mascaras contained scary ingredients that were completely harmful to the eyes. Ingredients like lead, aniline, and turpentine in some mascaras caused some women more bad than good. Do not purchase mascaras that contain ingredients like thimerosal as it can use conjunctivitis and rashes around your eye area.
Today, we have better regulations to curb the use of many of the ingredients but not all of them and that’s why it is better to watch out for harmful ingredients in your mascara.
Avoid These Chemicals in Your Mascara
- Parabens
- Formal aldehydes
- Petroleum
- Fragrance
- Coal tar
- BHA and BHT Preservatives
- Retinyl Acetate
- Propylene Glycol
Many of these ingredients can be carcinogenic and cause eye burning, itching, and rashes.
If mascaras have become a staple part of your makeup routine, it does pay to get a good mascara that will be gentle to your lashes and as well, offers lash-defining properties.
It is also crucial to note that no matter how safe a mascara ingredient is, you should never go to bed with mascara on. Carefully remove mascara with a suitable face cleanser. And, I always advise pairing using mascaras with other lash-boosting oils, to combat the sometimes drying effect of using mascara. You don’t want your lashes to suffer from your obsessive use of mascara.