Beauty brains

Eye-opening new mascaras.

When 64-yearold make-up guru Bobbi Brown told me recently that her desert island beauty product is mascara, I was surprised. I’d assumed she’d go rogue and choose something more esoteric.

But there’s a reason she didn’t. Almost everyone who wears make-up uses mascara. It’s such an easy way to transform your eyes. Eyeliner requires skill and enough lid to work with, and even eyeshadow doesn’t really work without mascara.

Mascara is a basic product with one job to do (even if some promise lift and curl, I find they never really do on my dead straight lashes). Some beauty experts maintain that the main factor that differentiates one mascara from another isn’t the formulation so much as the brush, which can be curved, thick or comblike. In other words, one mascara is pretty much like any other. Why not go cheap?

Cheap is fine if your lashes are abundant and strong. Even then, given that some people wear mascara every day and never quite clean it off their lashes, it seems a good idea to use one with gentle ingredients, or as gentle as a waterproof colourant can be, ideally with a few nourishing top-ups.

Beeswax, sesame seed oil, eucalyptus oil and lanolin (the latter, derived from sheep’s wool, is obviously not vegan) are all contenders that should help improve the condition of your lashes. A few drops of castor oil dotted on to your clean lashes at night will also

‘Clean’ mascaras have come a long way in the past couple of years

boost them. Keeping lashes in good condition will enhance their ultimate appearance – dry lashes that never get thoroughly cleaned tend to shed faster.

The term ‘clean’ is a contentious one in beauty, mainly because there’s still no standardised definition across the industry. It’s also sometimes used interchangeably with labels such as natural and non-toxic, which can be meaningless. When beauty brands talk about clean, they usually mean they don’t contain parabens, sulphates, triclosan, phthalates, formaldehyde and polyethylene glycol (PEG), but there are many more ‘clean’ no-nos.

This isn’t to say categorically that mascaras that aren’t ‘clean’ are bad for you – none of this is conclusive in any direction – but clean mascaras are less likely to contain harsh chemicals and their absence will improve the health of your lashes. Some, like Ilia’s, come in a travel size so you can trial for less outlay.

Clean mascaras have come a long way in the past couple of years. Brown herself has one, part of her new Jones Road range, and it’s rapidly become the Telegraph beauty team’s favourite clean mascara. It comes in one colour, black – all you need and not too hard a look even on the palest complexions, says Brown.

However, what’s being touted as a breakthrough clean mascara from organic make-up line Kjaer Weis has just launched in the UK. Called Impossible Mascara, it uses antiinflammatory raspberry fruit water to increase moisture and improve the rate of repair, while marula oil locks in moisture and provides protective antioxidants, and sunflower seed oil prevents breakage and stimulates healthy lash growth. User trials suggest it performs better than a conventional mascara, lengthening, thickening and lasting all day.

Here are five favourite mascaras with kinder credentials.

Celebrated make-up artist Bobbi Brown at work during New York Fashion Week