Ah, eyelashes: The longer, thicker and curlier, the better. Now, if you’re serious about maximising length, try this embarrassingly easy trick: Position your mascara brush at a perpendicular angle to your lashes and then weave the bristles in and out of the hairs to separate them into single strands. This lends a fantastic falsie effect that’s perfect if you’re gunning for party-perfect peepers.
“Visionary” hack aside, one does need the top tools of the trade to pull off this feat. With an “eye” on the prize, yours truly has compiled a compendium of the best bodybuilding bottles that will transform your poker-straight lashes into the fluttery follicles of your dreams.
READ MORE: The smart-girl guide to buying safer (and better!) makeup for your eyes
Adherents of the bigger-is-better beauty school of thought, this one’s for you. The colossal conical brush-head must surely rank as one of the most mammoth on the market, but there’s method to the massiveness: The generous girth is said to allow for maximum saturation of the bristles in the canister.
This whopper of a wand also makes good on its primary purpose of funnelling the water-resistant waxes, polymers and pigments from the root to the tip of your lash. As with most things Mac, this titan is not for the timid!
Boasting a priming potion on one end and the product proper on the other, this dual-sided drugstore darling’s biggest trump card must be its take-no-prisoners, go big or go home faux-lash formula fortified with clump-resistant creams and waxes that envelop your eyelashes from root to tip. Best for ballsy budget Barbies out to paint the town pink!
This beguiling British bauble boasts a head-turning hourglass-shaped brush that’s fantastic for faking a fabulous feline flick. The bristles have been precision-engineered to extend the length of the tiniest hairs at the outer edges, to give downturned peepers a perky Botox-like lift.
And as for the results proper? Let’s just say I had to switch to contacts because the lenses of my spectacles kept getting smudged by my now-generously girthed lashes – a most pleasant inconvenience, if you ask me. (Bonus points for the perfectly posh packaging!)
This covetable Chanel collectible is one magical makeup multitasker – the tapering tip of the wiry wand promises to latch onto the most minuscule of lashes for maximum thickening, conditioning and curling power. And yeah, this being Chanel and all, expect an eruption of green-eyed envy when you whip this beautiful baby out in the powder-room.
The go-to grooming bauble of backstage pros everywhere, this cutting-edge contraption boasts a patented airlock mechanism to prevent the formula from flaking and your lashes from clumping. I’m obsessed!
Ensconced within this ravishing red receptacle is an exquisite elixir that’s stuffed to the gills with esters and emollients for the most gorgeous gloss imaginable. The fortifying formula is fleshed out by futuristic conical bristles on the wand that promise to lift and lengthen your lashes for well, a most grand entrance indeed.
A stunning showcase of technical know-how, the wand itself is a thing of wonder with its sinuous curved profile. Delightfully dense and pleasingly pliable, the finely spaced teeth divides and conquers individual hairs for finely feathered lashes. An absolute joy to use!
A solid workwoman-ready wonder, just one swipe deposits all the product you need for luscious, fanned-out lashes that are fluttery, flirty and oh so fabulous. No clumping, too, at least in my experience – just oodles and oodles of drama and dimension, almost like wearing falsies.