Ok, so you know some mascaras get better when they've had a chance to dry out a bit? That's what I thought was going on with Benefit's Fan Fest Mascara. At first, I thought it was another good mascara from the brand, doing what it said on the tube, fanning out my wonky lashes neatly with a little added volume and length. Effective but classy. Then about a week into using it, I became more impressed, putting it down to it being that bit drier.
It claimed the spot as my favourite mascara of the moment. My only complaint was that if not watched carefully, it could leave marks just below my brows on my ever-oily eyelids. Then it hit me... when did my tiny lashes touch my brow bones? If this mascara could get them that long, mark all you want!
But it didn't stop there... I started to think it was hard to get off, my lashes looking darker and longer even after cleansing. Yes dear reader, I was slow to catch on. I finally started to question... could this mascara actually make my lashes grow? It wasn't until my boyfriend looked at me puzzled and said he'd thought for a second I was wearing fake lashes that I finally made a side-by-side picture of before and after and I was SHOOK.
Just look at my stumpy- sorry- little lashes before and after a month of using, both with no mascara. The first even has the advantage of being in HD and still so short.
No mascara before, No mascara after 1 month of using, With mascara after 1 month of using.
And of course, look at them with the mascara on. Apart from a sort of magic growth potion, it's also a banging mascara, only amplified by my fab new lashes. That close-up is after building up the product, but you can leave with less for a classy, smooth, fan of Bambi lashes. As illustrated below.
Before building up
I've never been the best at remembering to apply lash serum every day, but if it's your mascara you don't need to remember. Plus at around the £20 price mark, it's cheaper than most lash serums. I can't promise it will make your lashes grow, all I know is, it did make mine.
Benefit Benefit Fan Fest- Fanning & Volumising Mascara
When I first pitched this, my editor said we probably couldn't claim it makes your lashes grow if it doesn't say it does. But, a woman on a mission to share this genius with the masses, I looked into the mascara's ingredients, and low and behold it's intentionally packed with lash-loving ingredients like conditioning Provitamin B5, fatty acids from nourishing cranberry extract, as well as rice wax to define, separate and give a lasting lift.
It sets out to improve your lash health, and clearly, it's worked on mine. While I'm excited to see how all my other fave mascaras look on my new lashes, I have a feeling Fan Fest and I are at the start of a till death* do us part relationship.
*Discontinuation
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Elena Chabo is Cosmopolitan UK's beauty writer, working on everything from buzzy celeb news and trending beauty, to sincere first-person reviews and engaging video content for social media. She also creates meatier features and expert-led how-to guides, for print and online. Her passion for Black beauty, textured hair, and the ways beauty interacts with culture, society, identity and relationships, quickly took over her writing career and led her into beauty journalism. Following an MA in Magazine Journalism in 2017, she cut her teeth across various roles at Stylist Magazine, before taking on a Digital Writer role at Good Housekeeping. It was here that beauty took centre stage and she launched and ran the site's first stand-alone beauty section. Remaining at Hearst, she joined the Cosmo beauty team in 2022. Find her on LinkedIn.
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