It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been so excited about a mascara. You see, mascara used to be my beauty obsession; I’m gifted with naturally long lashes and mascara was always my staple product, my dessert island must have, my can’t live without… then one day, I started having major smudging issues – I literally had to throw out nearly all of my mascaras… and I had a lot. I’ve talked about this in much more detail here, but I did eventually find a solution in tubing mascaras (again, refer to the detailed post if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about); but, as tubing mascaras predominantly focus on a non-smudge formula, they can often be quite underwhelming in terms of volume and lengthening factors.
Enter YSL The Shock Mascara… Honestly, this is my perfect mascara. It amplifies the lashes with minimal effort, dramatises your eyes beautifully and is the perfect shade of midnight black. But most importantly for me, it doesn’t smudge – at all. This is funny because I honestly can’t explain to you how many different mascaras I’ve had to try since my smudging issue arose, and even the “no smudge” branded formulas I had issues with… but this one I don’t believe sells itself on that factor at all – nope, I’ve just checked the Saint Laurent website and there’s not a mention of no smudging for this one.
Three layers of YSL The Shock Mascara (left eye)
As well as looking the part, I found wearability to be pretty fab too. I experienced no flaking as the day wore on; and the formula was also a dream to apply – you know when you get a new mascara and often the formula can be too watery and super annoying to put on for the first few attempts until it’s aired a little… didn’t get that with this mascara at all. The only very slight criticism I can give it, is that it’s not the easiest to remove. To be fair though, as much as it’s not the easiest, it’s not the hardest either – I don’t have to scrub at my eyes or anything; it just takes a bit longer than I’m used to. Although, as I’m writing this, I just had a thought that this could potentially be due to the fact that the only mascaras I’ve been able to wear for the past year or so, are tubing mascaras – which are known to be much easier to remove. So compared to the traditional mascara that most will be used to, it may not actually be that bad.
Please YSL, don’t ever stop making this. It’s literally a miracle for me and I’m so, so glad I discovered it. I can finally get excited about mascara again, wahoo!
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