BEST MASCARA FOR ASIAN LASHES: WE’VE TRIED, TESTED AND RANKED MASCARAS FROM NARS TO CHARLOTTE TILBURY
We love mascara – we rarely leave the house without it and it’s usually a handbag staple for spontaneous after-work drinks (well it was before lockdown at least!) The thing is though, being Chinese, our lashes are incredibly straight, short, thin and lacking in volume. A common occurrence among many Asian men and women. Even when we use eyelash curlers and apply a single coat of mascara, our lashes will naturally start to drop and we end up with straight lashes again. The only we can guarantee long-lasting volume is via professional lash lift treatments. If you’re in the same boat as us, whether you have Asian lashes or you’ve just not been blessed with long curly lashes, we’ve recently tried and tested seven different mascaras from popular brands, including NARS and Charlotte Tilbury. Particularly those which promise volume, curl and length.
Best Mascara For Asian Lashes
Before we reveal what we’ve found to be the best mascara for our Asian lashes, we wanted to just explain how we apply mascara.
We recommend you apply a very light coating before wiping off any excess mascara from the wand. We also go back in with our eyelash curlers but only once the mascara is fully dried to give that added lift.
We also need to caveat these scores. We have previously carried out a more in-depth Huda Beauty Legit Lashes review, and have featured the Maybelline Falsies in our best drugstore mascara list.
In both, they scored differently but that was because for those reviews, they were tested on longer, Western lashes. The scores below are specific to how these same mascaras perform on shorter, Asian lashes.
7th Place: Huda Beauty Legit Lashes
Huda Kattan launched her first mascara in May and they were so popular, they sold out quicker than you could say Huda Beauty Legit Lashes.
This dual-sided mascara has one brush that promises volume, and another that promises curl and length and our experience of using both was a mixed bag. For the first coat, we used the volume side first.
It gave impressive definition. For the second coat, we used the curl and length side which has small fibres that are designed to add length to your lashes. The curl side actually separated our lashes more and gave them more of a fluttery look.
A major plus point is that we didn’t have to curl our lashes after two coats of mascara because the curl lasted the whole day. A major downside is that by the time we got home at the end of the day, we looked like we’d been crying. This mascara smudged a lot and it took panda eyes to a new level! It was also rather flaky; there was plenty of black residue from the mascara on our cheeks immediately after application and throughout the day.
6th Place: Chanel Inimitable Volume Waterproof
The most expensive mascara in our review, yet also the most disappointing, was Chanel’s Inimitable Volume mascara. It promises “instant, natural and long-lasting 3D” lashes and comes with a soft and flexible elastomer brush.
This has thin bristles that cling to the lashes and is easy to apply. Our disappointment stems from the fact we had set our expectations too high. One coat made little difference to our lashes, and the mascara itself was barely visible. Two coats added a very small amount of volume to our left eye compared to the right eye.
It did pick up small eyelashes in the inner corner of our eyes, which was good, but it was far from the 3D look we had been promised. On the plus side, when used with our eyelash curlers it did make a difference.
And this mascara gives a natural look which would make it great for an everyday mascara because its formula is light. Plus, there is no clumping at all and it stayed in place all day with no smudging.
5th Place: Maybelline Falsies Lash Lift
This super affordable mascara promises you a false LVL lash lift effect. From its rich formula, and the shape of the mascara brush, it’s been designed to lift and coat all lashes for maximum volume with minimum effort.
When using this on Asian lashes, however, this doesn’t quite live up to its promises.
It clumped our lashes together and was heavy. With one coat of the Falsies Lash Lift mascara, we instantly noticed that our lashes dropped. But it did add a little length. With an extra coat, it added a little more length and a small amount of volume. What we did like about this was that our lashes felt light and soft, and it was smudge-free throughout the day. This is hugely impressive given its price.
