Happy Friday, y’all! I hope you all had an amazing week. Today, I have another mascara review for your reading pleasure. I’ve done a deep dive on the newest launch from Milani. The Highly Rated Lash Extensions Mascara. I’ve heard mixed things about this one online. So, I was super excited to try it. Especially because Milani is something of a blind spot for me, drugstore wise. Let’s get into the review!
MILANI HIGHLY RATED LASH EXTENSIONS MASCARA – $26.99 – priceline.com.au
Packaging first, as always. The Milani Highly Rated Mascara is housed in a chrome gold and aqua green tube. There is chrome gold detail on the bottle itself. It’s pretty standard packaging for a drugstore mascara. But I do find the shade of green to be eye-catching. And in a range that tends to stick to black/gold/clear packaging, it does stand out. The Highly Rated Mascara is vegan, cruelty free, and contains 10.5ml of product.
The brush for the Highly Rated Mascara is one that I’ve seen a ton. It’s a molded brush head, in a conical shape, with evenly spaced bristles that get shorter going up to the tip. I swear, with tubing mascaras, it’s either this style or the curved, ballet shoe style. In any case, this wand does have one of my pet hates in a mascara brush. It’s way too long. And because the end of the brush doesn’t come to a full tip (i.e. it’s flat rather than pointed), I find that I ding my inner eye with product as I’m trying to reach those inner lashes quite often. I also find the bristles to be weirdly grippy. Like they can cling to the lash too snuggly and can occasionally tug. It’s a weird thing.
Were you getting sick of me reviewing tubing mascaras? Sorry to disappoint, this is another to add to the pile. Having said that, this one does have a unique factor that makes it stand out. Though maybe not for the right reasons. I noticed very quickly that the formula for the Highly Rated Mascara was a very wet one. And it takes a little while to dry down fully. So much so that after applying, I was noticing little dots on my upper eyelid from where the wet mascara has touched that part of my face. Even worse was when I sneezed five minutes after applying.
Like most tubing mascara’s these days, there are some fun goodies in the formula of the Highly Rated Mascara. The big ones being Shea Butter and Castor Seed Oil to help condition and nourish the lashes. It’s also a vegan friendly waxed based formula that slides off the lashes with warm water.
The big claims of the Highly Rated Mascara is that it’s supposed to lift and lengthen. And while I get a little bit of both, it’s not nearly as much as I expected. I also found that for some reason, this formula likes to clump my lashes together. Especially on my left side, I would have to comb and comb to get some separation otherwise they would all stick together. The one positive I will give it is that it’s more voluminous than I normally see in a tubing mascara. Though that might be the aforementioned clumping.
Getting into the wear test now, and I have to say that the Highly Rated Mascara is kind of a ‘good news, bad news’ situation. The good news is that, for the most part, I didn’t experience the droop in my lashes that I sometimes see in tubing mascaras. They actually held up pretty well. The bad news is that this formula does have a trait that is common amongst tubing mascaras. This one flakes like a bitch! And they aren’t small little flakes, these are large, quite noticeable flakes that migrate into the eye. Fun fact, I found out the hard way that this formula irritates my eyes. Yeah, not fun. And that also goes for removal. I have to do it in the shower and then rinse my eyes out quickly after.
Well, after all that, I have to give the Milani Highly Rated Mascara a thumbs down. The formula is just too messy and the effect it gives the lashes is truly lackluster. Have you tried the Milani Highly Rated Mascara? Let me know in the comments.
Cheers and love
Emily xo