I’m about to admit something I’m not proud of: until this morning, I had never tried a Shiseido color cosmetic.
I had been reading a lot of online reviews about their Mascara Base ($23), a primer that preps your lashes for mascara application, and supposedly enhances the look of mascara by holding a curl and amplifying volume, length and definition. It’s like a base coat for your lashes. After reading all the raves on a certain site, I knew I needed it.
When I whipped it out of my makeup bag this morning (and when I pulled the tester out of the tube in the store), I was a bit dismayed by the waxy clumps at the base of the wand. Clumps are never good when it comes to mascara. But I swept it over my lashes, and the muted-grayish waxy formula seemed to be fine. Don’t expect results here; it’s not supposed to work yet.
After the jump, the final verdict.
I was horrified when I applied my mascara. HORRIFIED. The wand skidded along my lashes, leaving in its wake large, sticky, unsightly clumps. My lashes adhered together in major spider lashes. I freaked for a second, then decided to keep going. By the time I got to the middle of the lashline, it had evened itself out. (I combed the hell out of the outer corner where the clumps were, and they came out fine.) I’m not sure if it was a first-time fluke or what, but I’ll be on the lookout for that in the future.
The mascara did look a bit more intense with the Mascara Base underneath. You know when you apply mascara after curling your lashes, the curl tends to droop ever so slightly? Not with Mascara Base! So far, it’s locked in the curl, and these lashes aren’t going anywhere.
One thing I did not like about this product was that it seemed to sap the volumizing properties from my mascara. I usually have a lush, thick fringe with my favorite mascara, and now I have superdark, lengthy lashes that look like slightly-sparse falsies. But there is a happy ending with this product; the trade-off is that my lashes look so long, they are now extending up into my brows. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but the effect is just as pretty as my usual mascara look; I’m just not fully used to it yet.
Bottom line: this stuff is pretty pricey, and if you’re satisfied with your mascara, you probably don’t need it. However, if you are frustrated by mascara smudging, losing its curl, and not lengthening lashes to your liking, this is the solution to your problems.
