Is Great Lash Still Great?

Maybelline's Great Lash  has been a best selling mascara for the last 40 years...which sounds like a lifetime, until I did the math and realized I could have been their first customer.  It is a perennial favorite on many beauty round ups, inluding Allure's and is frequently mentioned as a staple in top makeup artists arsenals.

On a lark, I decided to revisit Great Lash, my very first mascara to see how it held up over the years. I always loved the Lilly Pulitzeresque hot pink and lime green packaging and with nothing to compare it too, was satisfied with its performance   Between changes in brush shape; fat, thin, curved and comb and formulas; thickening, lengthening, lash accelorating,  fiber filled and waterproof,  mascara has come a loooong way.  So how did it hold up???

I might have chosen a kinder morning for a test drive, but once I've got the itch, it must be scratched.  My slightly bloodshot eye is the result of one cosmopolitan, one glass of chardonnay and one decaf cappuccino that was ANYTHING BUT (grrrrrrrrrrrrr), consumed at a wonderful Birthday celebration.

I was filled with nostalgia and high hopes for my revisit, but was hugely disappointed!  The brush is much smaller by today's standards (I purposely did not buy their new BIG brush version, so I could compare apples to apples, so to speak).  The color is a nice inky black, but the formula was very thin, leaving my lashes looking anemic.  In a word...meh.

With so many great options at every price point, including one of my faves Maybelline's The Falsies, it is bewildering what all the hoopla is still about.  Maybe it's still a right of passage thing and millions of pre teens try it each year as their gateway mascara. 

I dunno.  The next time I am feeling nostalgic about the makeup of youth, I am going to do remember this bit of whimsy and do the grown up thing instead...head straight to Sephora.

xox,
DD