Mascara that does not age like a fine wine: Review of Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin' Curves Mascara

Disclosure: Affiliate links.

I got this Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin' Curves Mascara in the Birchbox Mass Appeal box recently, which I would have recommended since it was such a good deal, but it sold out right away. (You can look at it here, if you want to for some reason.) I doubt I would have bought the mascara on its own, mainly because of don't really think of Rimmel for mascara - or anything else, really. It's not a brand that gets my attention very often. I'm not sure if I've ever used one of their mascaras before.

This mascara is an interesting one, although (spoiler) I wouldn't buy it again. Mascara reviews are tricky, because there doesn't seem to be a lot of consensus about which mascaras are good and which are bad. Mascara is pretty polarizing. For instance, I've read a lot of recommendations for Maybelline Great Lash (from real people, not just fashion magazines), but it is a huge fucking blah for me. And I absolutely love Covergirl LashBlast, but other people have told me it does nothing for them. So I think it depends on what your lashes are like and what results you're looking for. I'll give you my specs so you can decide if you will be likely to agree or disagree with my assessment of this stuff.

I have short, sparse, blonde lashes. In other words, they're invisible and they need a lot of fucking help. Accordingly, I like my mascara to provide both volume and length. I don't like clumps. I know some people are into drama at any cost and so a little clumping is fine, but I think it looks and feels weird on me. I am not too concerned about the shade of the product: brown, fairly black, very black, whatever. I can't put up with flaking or smearing, though. Dealbreaker. Some mascaras I like are, as I said, Covergirl LashBlast (in all its variations - Clump Crusher reviewed here), e.l.f. 3-in-1 (reviewed here), and Urban Decay Perversion. I liked the effects of L'Oreal Butterfly, but it flaked like crazy (reviewed here).

The most interesting thing about this mascara is its weird, curvy brush. I was afraid it was going to be gimmicky and annoying to use, but it's actually fine. You don't even really have to twist it around much - any part of the curve tends to work on any part of the lashes. The convex part of the curve is extra helpful to get at shorter lashes in the corners of the eyes. It also doesn't flake or smear on me, though even this will vary from person to person it seems, depending on how the oils in your skin react with a particular formula.

Usually I start to like mascaras a week or two after I've started using them, when the product has become just a little drier. They tend to become less messy and to add volume more easily. But I've had the opposite experience with this stuff. At first it was great - smooth, even length + volume - but now, a couple weeks later, it's starting to get globby and clumpy. You can see a glob stuck to the end of the brush in the photo above, and it's often worse than that. To get it to look really good, I should be combing through my lashes after applying it, but that's more work than I am willing to do on a regular basis. You can see below photos of both of my eyes taken on the same day. The first one is okay, but on the second, there are lots of blobs stuck to the ends of my lashes. Not great. It's pretty inconsistent.

No mascara

Two coats of Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin' Curves Mascara

Two coats of Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin' Curves Mascara

I'm guessing it's the brush that makes the difference here. With a spiky brush, a thicker/drier formula might work better, but a fluffier brush like this is more likely to gather globs, so the formula needs to be thinner. Of course, not every fluffy brush has that problem. I've really liked the two mini tubes of Urban Decay Perversion that I've used, for instance, and its super fluffy brush didn't have this problem, even after using it for weeks.

Overall, I find this mascara just okay. It does the job, and I certainly have used worse, but I also know there are better ones out there. While I don't love this for myself, I think it might be worth trying if you like thick formulas for lots of volume. The goopiness might not be as evident if you have thicker or longer lashes than I do to begin with (and I think most people do).

What do you think of mascaras with weird brushes? I've liked some and hated others. This one looks particularly weird but was surprisingly easy to use.

The oldest makeup in my hoard

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Ancient cosmetic artifacts.

In the last few years, two main things have changed about my makeup collecting habits. First, I have such a ridiculously large hoard of makeup and nail polish that my past selves would be baffled and probably judgmental if they knew what was ahead. (We could psychologize about what has motivated this change in behavior in me - latent hoarding tendencies coming out, the consumerist mentality of blogging, ramped-up procrastination efforts - but let's skip that for now.)

Second, because I have so much of everything, I am much more ruthless about what I discard. I still don't throw things away unless they are absolute garbage, but I have a lower threshold for what I will give away to someone I think would like it better, and a higher threshold for what is worth keeping around "just in case I decide I want to use it some day." That last point is debatable, I guess. I do have a lot of colors of eyeshadow that I almost never wear, for example, but that I think I might want some day. But if they perform poorly and aren't getting use, then they're out.

That all means that if I had done this exercise even two years ago, I would have a lot more old crap lying around to show you. As it is, with one main exception, these are all things I still like and use.

I'll go through the list in chronological order, based on the year in which I think the product was acquired. All dates are approximate! I don't really know exactly when I picked up most of these things. It's based more on a general sense of where I was in my life when I first used it. More relative dating than absolute dating, you might say.

Note: There are lots of photos below the jump.

ca. 1995: Annabelle blush brush and unknown powder brush

I guess these aren't technically makeup, but they're the oldest objects in my hoard at the moment. I "borrowed" both of these from my mother when I moved out of my parents' house to go to college in 1999. I'm sure she bought them several years earlier, which is why I'm putting them at 1995, but they could be even older than that.

Tricky tricky! Which package contains more product? Lip Gloss Edition (PLUS photos and review of L'Oreal Colour Caresse Wet Shine Stain in Infinite Fuschia) (picture heavy post)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Here is the third (and possibly final) installation of the series in which I look at the tricks packaging design plays to make you think you're getting more product than you really are. You can see the previous editions here. This time I'm going to look at a bunch of tubes of lip gloss, and holy shit, there's a lot going on here. Not one of these is without its illusion - so it took me a long time to choose which products to compare here, because every time I checked the label, I was surprised by the size. Some of these still confuse me, even when I know how much is actually in there. Let's get to it. Which of the two tubes below do you think contains more product?

L'Oreal Colour Caresse Wet Shine Stain in Infinite Fuschia ($10)
vs. e.l.f. Super Glossy Lip Shine in New York City ($1)

Now this is the kind of scathing review I love (from Lipglossiping)

Most of the reviews of the new Rimmel liquid lipsticks (Apocalips in the U.K., Show Off Lip Lacquer in the U.S.) say they have a light fruity scent and aren't drying. So I probably would have tried them, and then, like the Milani lipstick with their 'light fruity scent' that reminds me of fake-watermelon-flavored vomit, I would have hated them. Lipglossiping says: "Smell and taste are so closely linked, that if something smells bad… it often tastes bad too and I just don’t want this genetically-modified Jolly Rancher crap on my lips with its faux fruit salad gooeyness mere centimeters from my nostrils." Be still my fucking heart. Tell me what you really think! Read more about what she hates here.