Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara ($3) vs. Urban Decay Big Fatty and Benefit They're Real (picture-heavy post)

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Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara is some cheap shit, and in my opinion, it's an excellent alternative to some of the expensive "extreme" mascara options. I'll let the photos do most of the talking, but here are a few thoughts. When I first tried this stuff, I thought it did a better job of lengthening than volumizing. As is the case with many mascaras, after several days it thickened up, and then it did its volumizing thing better. This mascara makes impressive eyelashes, period. Its performance is somewhere in between Urban Decay Big Fatty and Benefit They're Real. It's more lengthening than the UD and more volumizing than the Benefit.

I always think close up photos of mascara are kind of useless when I see them on blogs. Almost everything looks clumpy and spidery and terrible in a macro shot. But I hope these will at least give you an idea of how the three mascaras compare. First, let's start with the Jordana mascara.

Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara on the left;
no mascara on the right.

Two coats of Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara on both eyes.

Makes a big difference on my short little invisible lashes, right?
Here's what my lashes (and eyebrows) look like bare:

Invisible eye-hairs

Here's a closeup of the Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara on one eye to compare with the photos of the other brands below. I'm wearing light eyeliner in the Jordana photos, just eyeshadow in the Urban Decay photos, and nothing in the Benefit photos, because I was rushed and forgot to be consistent. It's not scientific, but I don't think it makes a big difference. The differences you see are due to the mascaras themselves, which I've used many other times. These photos are representative of my experience.

Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara

Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara

Here's Urban Decay Big Fatty. I somehow failed to take a closed-eye photo that was in focus, and then failed to notice that I didn't have one until I had finished the mini tube of this shit and thrown it away. I'm sorry. I'm posting the blurry one anyway, just for consistency. I suck.

Urban Decay Big Fatty mascara

Urban Decay Big Fatty mascara

And here is Benefit They're Real:

Benefit They're Real mascara

Benefit They're Real mascara

I actually think that the cheap Jordana mascara is more impressive than either of the more expensive options on my lashes. I also vastly prefer the Jordana brush to either of the others. It has a traditional type of brush, not a spiky plastic one like the other two (which I sometimes like). The Urban Decay brush has bristles in two different lengths, and I have a hard time figuring out how to line it up so that I know which ones are going to hit my lashes. The Benefit brush has really fucking long plastic spike bristles that terrify me. The ones at the end of the brush are especially long. I can't count how many times I have stabbed myself in the eye with them trying to get the small lashes at the corners of my eyes or on the bottom. It's also really hard to do my bottom lashes with that brush without getting mascara specks under my eyes. Maybe it works better for people with longer or thicker eyelashes to begin with - I don't know.

The Jordana mascara doesn't flake or smear, even from rain or sweat or watery eyes. It makes my lashes longer, thicker, and it curls. By curls, I mean that, because I am too lazy to bother with an eyelash curler (and they never seem to do much for me anyway), I appreciate that this mascara seems to hold the shape it gives my eyelashes. I brush them up with the wand, and they stay like that. Make any sense? Overall, my eyelashes look natural, but still impressive, from a normal distance (moreso than they do in the closeup).

It's not perfect, though. It makes a huge mess in the shower. Whatever keeps it from flaking and smearing makes it difficult to clean off, even though it isn't waterproof. You end up with a thick tarry black mess under your eyes that takes a few rounds with the makeup remover to clear up. It also has a tendency to get globby, both on the eyelashes and the brush. The brush usually looks like this when you pull it out of the tube:

Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara

You have to watch out for those goopy bits at either end. You can also end up with blobs at the ends of your eyelashes that you need to wipe off with your fingertip. But Urban Decay Big Fatty has a very similar formula.

Overall, I much prefer the $3 Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara to either the $20 Urban Decay Big Fatty or the $23 Benefit They're Real. It gives me more drama and is easier to use. In fact, it's a bit too much drama for me for everyday use. I tend to save it for when I want something special.

I find that mascara is one of those things that people have widely different opinions of, depending on what they're looking for and what their eyelashes are like. The idea here is at least to show you a comparison of the three on the same eyelashes. If you like dramatic, thick, long eyelashes (are there people who don't?), then the Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara is something I would definitely recommend trying. I mean, it's $3 for fuck's sake. Knowing this is out there, I would never buy either of the more expensive mascaras. This costs about 1/7 what they do, and it works at least twice as well, in my opinion. You do the math! For something that is going to dry up in a few months, it's not worth investing too much, anyway.