In addition to Benefit’s tireless promotional campaign, the new mascara has been generating significant buzz. Every single beauty influencer on YouTube and Instagram has given it a stellar review — so stellar, in fact, that some fans are convinced it’s all a scam. They feel that Benefit’s massive #sponcon budget and lavish influencer trips may have convinced more than a few beauty vloggers to give this mascara a favorable review. So how does this mascara really shape up? I put it to the test to find out. This popular drugstore mascara ($10, Ulta) has been compared time and time again to Too Faced’s cult-favorite Better Than Sex mascara, which means it must be pretty spectacular. As I predicted, the Lash Paradise formula was slightly prone to sticking to itself and creating small clumps, but it only required an itty bitty amount of finagling to get it just right. The one downfall of that very chunky brush, however, was that it was not ideal for reaching the inner corner or the lower lashes. My naturally puffy under-eyes make me super vulnerable to mascara smudges on my lower lash line, but after a full 8-hour work day, my transfer was minimal. I’ve tried just about every high-end mascara dupe at the drugstore, and I can tell you L’Oreal Lash Paradise is absolutely one of the best. But… how does it compare to Benefit’s higher-end product? Although even I, a noted high-end beauty snob, generally find it hard to justify spending this much on mascara, I normally do. I already love Benefit’s Roller Lash mascara so I went into this test with very high hopes. Whereas Lash Paradise had a short and thick brush, Benefit’s BadGal had a long and slender brush with very tiny and spread-out bristles. I knew due to my experience with Roller Lash that this kind of brush would do wonders for my eyelash length, but I had my concerns about its volume-inducing potential. If L’Oreal’s smudging was minimal, Benefit’s was non-existent. After the entire work day, it looked exactly the same as it did when I applied it. While I loved L’Oreal’s Lash Paradise’s ($10, Ulta) for its budget-friendly price point, it was a little clumpier and slightly more likely to smudge.
