Mini Reviews: Mascaras by Too Faced, Guerlain, YSL, and Make Up For Ever

I recently received samples of several new-ish mascaras and want to share my thoughts. Here are some quick reviews of Too Faced‘s Better Than Sex, Guerlain‘s Cils d’Enfer, YSL‘s Volume Effet Faux Cils Shocking, and Make Up For Ever‘s Smoky Extravagant.

Here are my lashes sans mascara. I have blonde (meaning virtually invisible without mascara), reasonably long lashes of about medium fullness. Let’s see how these mascaras work on my lashes! I photographed my lashes after using the mascara a few times, as mascaras typically change with exposure to air.

The wand of Too Faced’s boasts an hourglass-shaped brush that purportedly “separates, coats, and curls each lash to voluptuous perfection.”

Here is one coat of Two Faced’s Better Than Sex Mascara. It does curl and separate pretty well, though the fatness of the brush makes it difficult for me to coat the lashes on my inner upper lid. Overall, though, I quite like this mascara.

The wand of YSL’s Shocking Volume Effet Faux Cils (Fake Lashes Effect) is much longer and skinnier, which “allows for perfect control and precision and the off-center twist enhances length and curl.”

Above, one coat of the YSL mascara applied to my lashes. It does a nice job of lengthening and gives pretty good curl. On the other hand, it also clumps a bit, whereas I prefer my lashes to be separated.

The Make Up For Ever brush is cone-shaped. Its application instructions suggest that you apply the fat end to the base of your lashes to build volume and run the tapered tip over the tips to add definition.

It worked okay for me, but was also fairly clumpy. As you may see from the product photo, the tapered end of the wand holds a lot of extra product. When you run this vertically through your lashes to add length, the extra product ends up sticking your lashes together. I’ll continue to test this to see if drying out a bit might make this mascara a little bit less sticky.

Last but not least is my favorite, Guerlain’s Cils d’Enfer (Hellish Lashes) Maxi Lashes. The wand is similar to the YSL mascara’s, with fairly uniform bristles to evenly coat lashes. I believe it’s also lightly perfumed, which makes it even more of a pleasure to use.

Here’s one coat applied to my lashes. The mascara is said to give “maximum volume, curl and hold.” You can probably see that not a whole lot of volume has been added, but my lashes are lengthened and separated quite nicely. Second and third coats of this mascara do have a more pronounced volumizing effect.

My favorites of the bunch are the Too Faced and the Guerlain mascaras. I’m thinking about adding a full-sized Cils d’Enfer to my mascara stash when this sample runs out.

All of these mascaras are available from Sephora. Too Faced’s Better than Sex retails for $23. YSL’s Shocking Volume Effet Faux Cils is $30, as is Guerlain’s Cils d’Enfer Maxi Lash. Make Up For Ever’s Smoky Extravagant is $24.