Boots No.17 Va Va Voom Mascara

...my bargain-hunting mode, I spotted Boots 17 Va Va Voom Mascara for the same price - £5.86 for 8ml – but with a free eyeshadow palette. SOLD!

I can most certainly say that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was on such a tight budget, I would never have even noticed this mascara. The packaging is cheap and tacky looking; it has a chunky black tube with silver and purple writing and patterns all over it. The lid has silhouettes of people ...
...Boots are trying to appeal to the young, trendy, clubbing generation (that’s not me then!), particularly as the tube promises “Dramatically volumised lashes with party-proof staying power. Extreme volume building brush for a false lash effect.” We’ll see….

Unscrewing the lid I was amazed at how big the brush was; almost half an inch wide. This is one chunky brush! The colour of the mascara seemed a good dark black, although not very ... more

The credit crunch is sadly having an effect on my make-up bag. On my most recent shopping trip to Boots, I needed new mascara but instead of heading to the lovely, glossy premium brand counters, I headed to the more economical looking brands. In the past when my purse has been somewhat light, I’ve always gone for Rimmel mascaras as I find they do the job satisfactorily. This time however, in my bargain-hunting mode, I spotted Boots 17 Va Va Voom Mascara for the same price - £5.86 for 8ml – but with a free eyeshadow palette. SOLD!

I can most certainly say that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was on such a tight budget, I would never have even noticed this mascara. The packaging is cheap and tacky looking; it has a chunky black tube with silver and purple writing and patterns all over it. The lid has silhouettes of people dancing with their hands in the air. I’m guessing that Boots are trying to appeal to the young, trendy, clubbing generation (that’s not me then!), particularly as the tube promises “Dramatically volumised lashes with party-proof staying power. Extreme volume building brush for a false lash effect.” We’ll see….

Unscrewing the lid I was amazed at how big the brush was; almost half an inch wide. This is one chunky brush! The colour of the mascara seemed a good dark black, although not very rich. I was disappointed to see so much excess mascara on the brush, it’s annoying when you are rushing to get ready for work and have to waste time fiddling about trying to get the excess gloop off. And gloop is exactly what this mascara is! Very gloopy and runny. Oh dear, not off to a good start…

Applying this mascara is a pain in the backside. I’ve already mentioned that the brush is really big and chunky, but the actual bristles are really fine and there are just loads of them tightly packed together. Having so many tiny bristles all bunched up together makes absolutely no impact when trying to comb the mascara through my eyelashes. One of two things happened. Either, the bristles just bent and practically no mascara ended up on my lashes. Or the brush just pushed against my lashes without actually combing through them, leaving runny gloop clumping all my lashes together and smudging over my eyelids. Even when I tried to separate the clumps with an eyelash comb it proved a fruitless task because the mascara was so runny that my lashes would immediately stick together again. Bah!

With a combination of a tissue and an eyelash comb I finally managed to make my eye make-up look presentable enough for work. The finished result was far from “dramatically volumised lashes” – I might as well have just done my eye lashes with a felt tip pen and Pritt Stick! I didn’t have time to re-apply my make-up so I left it as it was and headed to work.

Now, what would you think Boots meant when they said that this mascara has “party-proof staying power”? I would at least expect it to last a night of dancing and debauchery that the young’uns get up to these days. Well don’t set your expectations too high party people – I spend my days hunched up over a desk doing accounts, not exactly rock & roll is it? Yet by lunchtime I had mascara smudged under my peepers. On the plus side, this mascara is a breeze to remove! One sweep of a cleanser-soaked cotton wool pad and it’s all gone.

So to sum up this mascara, I’ll use their marketing spiel:

Dramatically volumised lashes – NO
with party-proof staying power – NO
Extreme volume building brush – NO
for a false lash effect - NO

It might have cost little more than a fiver, but what a waste of a fiver that was! Oh Boots, you must try harder next time…

 

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