Benefit They're Real

Welcome to fancy little space in cyberspace. My blog is about makeup, chronic illness and loving life. In my recent blog post Beauty from Heartbreak I explained that I won a giveaway from Rodneya's blog Neya V Beauty Talk. She is beautiful soul and is so sweet. You really should go check out her blog it's amazing. One of the products I won is a sample of Benefit They're Real Mascara. 

Benefit They're Real Mascara is a very popular mascara that claims "They're real! lengthens, curls, volumizes, lifts and separates. Our jet black, long wearing formula won't smudge or dry out. A specially designed brush reveals lashes you never knew you had. 94% saw dramatic length & volume. 90% saw base to tip curl. 94% saw visible lift. 100% saw long wearing results." I put it to the test. Let's see what I found.

Naked lashes

Forgive my shininess. I had just washed my face and put on my moisturizer but am not wearing any makeup. You can clearly see my natural lashes are very light in color. My bottom lashes are barely visible without mascara. You can also see that my lashes have some natural curl.I don't have particularly long or particularly short lashes. I have a fair amount of lashes. Overall, they are very average. 

One coat Benefit They're Real!

It's quickly apparent that this mascara is black, it's very black. You can immediately see that They're Real has defined and darkened my lashes. The first coat goes on smoothly and easily. The wand is a decent size and has a couple of extra bristles on the tip making it easy to get to individual lashes even at the inner and outer corners. 

Two coats Benefit They're Real! 

Coat two, things start getting a little tricky. The mascara wants to start getting spidery and it want's to clump a bit. I definitely have to use a metal lash comb to ensure my lashes aren't sticking together. It's a fight to get my metal lash comb in between my lashes. It's an even bigger struggle to get the lash comb between my lashes without getting mascara all over the place while the mascara is still wet. Yet if I wait until it's dry then the mascara begins to flake.

Three coats Benefit They're Real

Third coat, the problems are just compounding. You can see that the mascara is leaving clumps at the tips of my top lashes. You can clearly see the mess on my eyelids from using the metal lash comb to keep the lashes from sticking together. This is just a fussy mascara. It's not like you can just slap on a coat or two of mascara and go. You have to finesse this mascara. I love the volumizing effect of this mascara but hate the way it clumps. For me, it's best to use this mascara at the base of my lashes and to try to avoid placing it on the tips of my mascara.

Overall, I enjoy this mascara and it's a nice addition to my collection but it would not make my top three. I certainly don't think it's a good stand alone mascara for me. It's a nice layer to other mascaras to add volume. I certainly wouldn't wear three coats of this mascara, but I really enjoy using this as a final coat to add volume and that rich black color.