WHAT I USE… LASH & BROW BOOSTERS

WHEN YOU GET PAID TO TEST BEAUTY PRODUCTS FOR A LIVING, WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY PAY TO USE? ELLE’S BEAUTY DIRECTOR Katy Young COMES CLEAN

Our beauty director reveals the products that have transformed her lashes and eyebrows

After 1O years of trying and testing what I would call (at best) pretty mediocre lash boosters, this year something happened. My stubby spindles began to grow. And grow. So much so, my now-Snuffleupagus-like lashes have persuaded friends to drop their almost-religious commitment to the gluing of cashmere wisps to their lids once a month, all in favour of the wonderstuff I was using. It was a miracle I never thought I’d see, on both counts.

Perhaps saving a few hundred pounds a month (lash extensions can be eyewateringly expensive) in favour of nurturing what we already have is in the spirit of beauty now. Excessive and fake is out, practising economics and love for what you’re naturally blessed with is in. (And a little encouragement, or lash ‘MiracleGro’, is totally within the rules, wink wink.)

That’s not to say that these lash boosters aren’t pricey, because they are. Developing growth serums that are both effective and safe for painting around the eyes is a costly business. Take the original magic ingredient, a lipid compound called bimatoprost. Originally used in the treatment of glaucoma, it came with the side effect of extending the growth phase (or ‘anagen’) of lashes. One US company, Latisse, went on to use bimatoprost as the key active ingredient in its FDA-approved lash serum. Did it work? Absolutely, as long as you were OK with potentially changing the colour of your irises as a result.

Call me cautious, but I’ve always read the small print, so I’ve kept a keen (and permanently green) eye on brands that have spent a little more time on the safety bit. And it’s finally paying off.

The best in show are full of vitamins, fatty acids (remember being told castor oil would grow lashes?), strengthening peptides and amino acids. They work to eke out the growth cycle of each lash that would otherwise fall out or break, which also makes them a must for anyone going cold turkey on lash extensions hoping to grow out their stumpy remnants. My can’t-live-without is the Revitalash Advanced Serum, £89, which I’ve been using for so long I can touch my brows with my lashes. This party trick is easier since I started loading on eyebrow-boosting serum – if you’re into bushy brows or, like me, undoing damage from overplucking in the Nineties, look no further.

I’d like to say it was the research behind it that won me over (brilliantly, an ophthalmologist created it for his wife, who had lost her hair and lashes during chemotherapy), but I’ll admit it was actually upon seeing the results on a fellow editor at an event last year. I got my first vial the very next day. My litmus test of what works has always been pondering over what products I might still buy if I didn’t work in beauty. Always assuming that whatever new life I had would allow me the price tag, this is right up there. I’ve got an eye for good products, and now that eye has very, very long lashes indeed.

“EXCESSIVE AND FAKE IS OUT. PRACTISING ECONOMICS AND LOVE FOR WHAT YOU’RE NATURALLY BLESSED WITH IS IN”