The Great Mascara Hunt: Bourjois Maxi-Frange Mascara

Review by Cavewoman
Graphic by Katie at Scentzilla
picture from Sephora

All this mascara madness has me thinking. Just how many mascaras have I tried over the years? I think I have written a dozen mascara reviews on the MakeUpAlley, many of the reviews are for mascaras I've never reached for again. And then I got to thinking of our last project, the primers. Mascaras. Primers. Voila!! Mascara primer! Could this be the answer to my mascara challenges? Off to my makeup trunk I went, to pull out and re-test Bourjois Maxi-Frange Mascara, which is a dual-ended wand with a primer at one end and a black mascara at the other. Why I had relegated this object to my storage case I have no idea. So I thought I'd try it again to see if the primer/mascara combination, especially this Bourjois, would help to give me some lashes.

The primer end of this Bourjois is a creamy, milky-peachy-ivory shade of a creamy-gel substance that is delivered to the lashes with a comb. It made sense to me, because the comb actually worked well to separate the lashes and coat each one evenly. It was easy to see where the primer was applied and easy to get an even application. I stroked on the primer to my curled lashes (that always makes me laugh!) and I did both eyes with the primer before I used the mascara end. The mascara part of this product is wet and just thick enough to give a good coat, and the brush is long but not tapered. It's a large brush, and the grooves are separated just enough to help get an even coating over the primer but not too separated, which can tend to overcoat and clump. It was not difficult at all to achieve nicely darkened and visible lashes. As soon as I was finished applying the mascara, I noticed that the curl was gone (not really a surprise to me) but there was little globbing and clumping and I did not use a mascara comb afterwards. Bourjois Maxi-Frange dried down quickly, and my lashes felt soft, not crispy. I have to say I was pretty impressed that it did not take long at all to achieve a nice fringe with the Frange. It felt lightweight on my lashes. I checked my application later in the day to notice that a few of my lashes had stuck together (not quite Tammy Faye, but still, a bit disturbing) so I combed through them with a metal lash comb. This definitely got rid of the clumps, but who needs to carry a lash comb around all day and keep checking for a mascara that clumps hours after application! After the comb-through, I had teeny flakes of mascara all over my cheeks. But my lashes looked darkened, some of the volumizing was gone, but still it was a nice natural look. Maxi-Frange was easy to remove at the end of the day with my Almay pads. I think that if I use the lash comb immediately after applying the mascara, it might help in avoiding the clumping that happened later in the day.

Product rating, 7.

Mascara Madness Bloggers:
http://www.beautifulmakeupsearch.com/blog2/
http://beautyaddict.blogspot.com/
http://blend10.blogspot.com/
http://thedailyobsession.wordpress.com/
http://beautydiary.blogspot.com/
http://www.ladybuglife.blogspot.com/
http://monkeyposh.blogspot.com/
http://thenonblonde.blogspot.com/
http://scentzilla.com/
http://after-so-much-thinking.blogspot.com/
http://victoriasown.blogspot.com/

Disclosure: This product was purchased by the reviewer, Cavewoman