You know, I truly had every intention of reviewing as many drugstore mascaras as I could for the rest of the year. I have been reviewing more and more high end mascaras lately and I was beginning to fell like I was neglecting my beloved drugstore. But then Rare Beauty, a brand that has quickly shot into my favourites list, just had to release their first mascara. Causing my Instagram DM’s to blow up with review requests in the process. I picked it up during the last big Sephora sale and I’ve been testing it out for a few weeks. So, if you want to know if the newest launch from Rare Beauty is as perfect as the name says, just keep reading!
RARE BEAUTY PERFECT STROKES UNIVERSAL VOLUMIZING MASCARA – $34.00 – sephora.com.au
Starting with the packaging, the Perfect Strokes Mascara is housed in a very simple tube style packaging. The tube is a soft beige colour with gold detail. It’s very in line with the rest of the brand’s products that I’ve seen so far. The Perfect Strokes Mascara is Vegan, Cruelty Free and contains 13.5ml of product (which I think is the most I’ve seen so far)
Keeping with the simplicity theme, the wand is actually quite lovely. It’s a fluffy, cylindrical style brush with natural bristles. The bristles do have some space between them. Which in theory should allow for good separation. There is the slightest of tapering at the tip, but not a lot.
The formula has decent pigmentation. It appears much darker on the lashes as it does in this swatch. What surprised me was that it felt quite dry. There isn’t a lot of creaminess or waxiness to this formula. In fact, it was quite thick. Which pairs with the wand surprisingly well. I’ll also note that it dries down really quickly, which will be important later on.
I’ve tried a few mascaras in my time now. And I can usually get a good feel for a mascara by looking at both the formula and the wand (which is why I go into so much detail). With this mascara, I suspected this would be a good one for volumzing over lengthening and I was bang on the money! If you’re already blessed with long lashes, but want a boost of volume, you might as well stop reading and add this one to cart immediately. Because I wildly suspect that you’ll love it.
Having said that, there are few things that I learned about this mascara quite quickly. One, the wand holds a lot of product and I strongly suggest wiping it off before applying for the first time. Two, this is not a layering friendly mascara. The thicker formula coupled with the quick dry down means that if I went with too much, I could easily land in clump city. Third and finally, I had to resist the urge to wiggle this mascara on my lashes. The thicker formula meant that my lashes would join together and not separate nicely. Going straight up from root to tip game me the best results.
But now we have to get to the all important question. How does it wear? And for a formula that isn’t tubing, I was completely blown away! This mascara, for the most part, stayed put for well over 10 hours without smudging or transferring. The worst thing it did was flake slightly. But I pretty much expect that with drier formulas like this and I’ve easily had worse. Hell, I wore this mascara through a brow wax and it still didn’t budge.
One more thing that I’ll quickly note is that this isn’t an easy mascara to remove. It is marketed as being water resistant and I strongly recommend using an oil based cleanser to remove it.
All in all, I highly recommend the Perfect Strokes Mascara and it’s a strong contender for my Best of the Year. It’s a teensy bit on the pricey side for me to say pick it up at full price. But I will definitely buy this one again! Have you tried the Rare Beauty Perfect Strokes Universal Volumizing Mascara? Let me know in the comments below.
Cheers and love
Emily xo
P.S. I’ll be on holidays for most of next week. I’ll be back with new posts on the 16th November!
Always love your in depth reviews ♥️