I’ve been skipping mascara for the past couple of months. This move is not, I hasten to add, an aesthetic choice – I love mascara, always have – but because I have a few sleeping styes that keep threatening to wake up with every application of make-up to my eyes.
While my oil glands calm down with the help of some drops my ophthalmologist at OCL Vision, Ali Mearza, gave me, I’ve been leaning into lipstick to feel pulled together. As I type, I’m wearing a deep burgundy hue (Velvet Cherry by Tom Ford) topped with a hefty helping of gloss (Hildun x Hannah Martin Peptide Pearl Balm). My eyes remain without their usual anchor of blacker-than-black lashes, and the juxtaposition between my ‘90s-vibe lips and my undone eyes is not as pronounced as it might otherwise be, thanks to a lash lift and dye by Teresa Smith at I Love Lash.
But, still, my eyes are decidedly more naked than usual. And, according to my friend Kate, bang on trend. When I went to meet her for brunch, I removed my sunglasses with the aside to “ignore that I’m not wearing eye make-up”, to which she replied: ‘So modern of you! All the young people at the office don’t wear any.”
And they don’t, it seems. And not just the “young people”, but anyone wishing to look more right now, more part of the minimalist beauty movement that shows no signs of abating, more Zendaya on her Odyssey press tour, more Hailey Bieber, who once declared “I’m not the biggest mascara girl,” but who, like me, curls and tends to hers so they’re present but not a headline.
I asked my friend Lisa Oxenham, who’s embodied the minimal make-up, chic-but-somehow-beachy-and-defined thing for decades, and she told me: “I feel like mascara is too much for me, especially for the day. If I’m filming, I’ll put a bit at my roots for more definition, but that’s it.”
During my health-imposed hiatus, quite a few people have told me they feel similarly, and their fervour has nearly convinced me to make my mascara abstinence a permanent thing. But then I remember what mascara does for eyes, and that rumours about the death of mascara have swirled for years now, like clouds gathering over the skies of those of us for whom mascara wakes a face up. Overall, mascara doesn’t seem even remotely threatened by naysayers, if the launches are anything to go by. And they are, I think; brands do their research, and based on that – and on observing the many people wearing a healthy helping while on the Tube, I feel pretty confident in saying that it is, for the vast majority, one of the few non-negotiable make-up products.
I have noticed that mascara has upped its game, though. Most notably, the proliferation of tubing mascaras – those that form polymers around each lash and remove not with oil but with warm water, meaning no black smears around the eyes, and no tugging to remove them – along with new smudge-proof formulas has heralded a new era for mascara. See also the emergence of many brown options, suggesting that there are those who’d like to occupy the middle ground between looking like Kate Moss on a bender, c. 2007 all smoky eyes and clouds of Bardot-blonde hair, and emerging rabbit-eyed, without definition. Brown does this, you see, adding structure and intensity without giving the game quite so thoroughly away.
I’m not quitting the black stuff. But count me in on the modern formulas so I can run around town without fearing smudges. Here are the ones I can’t wait to apply as soon as I have the all-clear.
Sweed Cloud Mascara
A mascara that answers all mascara needs, whether it’s kissing the lash line for definition, lightly coating each lash so you’ve got a perfectly defined fringe, or really going for it with a full, thick, intense coating that’s the result of four passes.
£26
Lisa Eldridge Kitten Lash Mascara in Burnt Umber
Most brands now offer brown options, but this has an edge on its competitors. Perhaps it’s the brush – rubbery, spiky, able to really wiggle into lashes – or maybe it’s that this brown isn’t an afterthought but rather rich and warming, adding an element of soft warmth.
£29
Maybelline Lash Sensational Sky Tubes Mascara
The sky in the title refers to this mascara’s ability to help even straighter-than-straight lashes lift and stay lifted – a fact I can bear testament to because, before Smith lifted my lashes, I was relying on this to do the job, and it definitely acted a bit like a push-up bra for my lashes, holding them up and out where the world could see them.
£13.99
L’Oréal Paris Telescopic Mascara
Have you ever tried to coat your lower lashes only to find a big mess occurs – lumps and bumps and clumps? This brush is the antidote. On lowers, it’ll create definition, on uppers, it’ll lengthen and separate.
£11.99
Clinique Lash Powder Mascara
Award-winning and the mascara Lisa chooses when she wants to add a bit of depth to her eyes, this one’s a cult favourite because it doesn’t slide around, and the blacker-than-black formula makes eyes pop.
£26
