Review: Benefit's BadGal and Maybelline's Stiletto

Well, I went to Boots and they had a sample of the L'oreal Telescopic Explosion mascara out and I flicked it and broke it so I decided to return mine and instead get the Maybelline Stiletto instead.

I also picked up Glamour and used the BadGal mascara which came with it.

Maybelline Stiletto
The actual mascara:
This had been bigged up like no mans business after Maybelline's success with the Colossal which is my new HG mascara. Anyway, I used this and it wasn't as good as expected, it gave me really thin pin like lashes so is best for ladies who have applied another mascara but want some definition over the top. I wouldn't use it alone as it doesn't do anything for me, it is very similar to the Lash Architect from Maybelline so just buy that as it is cheaper than this..

The patent shine is practically non existent, I really struggled to see a patent coating on it and I can't see why you'd want plastic looking lashes..

The brush:
The brush itself is long and thin which leads me to believe that it's not really going to provide you with much volume..this belief was rendered true when I tried it on and all it did was make them look like black pins.

I don't curl my lashes so I can't speak about how good it is for ladies who curl but I can't imagine it taking curls out as it is a fairly light mascara.

My eye with the mascara:
I can't make the photo any bigger without scaring people but IRL the lashes were very nicely defined but to get to that stage I did get quite a lot of mess on my upper lid (some of which you can still see). I only have the mascara on my upper lashes so that's how it balances out with my natural lashes underneath. Close up the lashes were a damn sight longer than the BadGal lashes which looked stubby at best. Also, I should point out that my eye is only red because I took my contact lens out and itched it beforehand, it has nothing to do with the mascara.

Repurchase?
Based on the above, I would purchase this again. I retried it when doing this review and compared to the BadGal it gave me great length but the BadGal isn't my best friend. However, comparing it to the Colossal it falls a bit behind, I'd consider teaming them up and thus would repurchase if it builds on the Colossal.


Benefit BadGal
The mascara:
I have had this used on me before in Boots and it worked really really well, then I had it used on me and again and the results were mediocre. I heard that Glamour magazine was giving a smaller size of this away so I thought I'd give it a bash seeing as it was only £2.

My experience with this was pleasant enough but I can't see why so many people swear by it and why Benefit make such a big deal out of it. All it does is make the base of my lashes look thicker and provides no length at all. It also clumps and smudges.

The brush:
I took this photo with the super macro function and this is how chunky and cumbersome the brush is, apparently the bigger the barrel bit, the bigger lashes you get..that only works for me with the Colossal.

The brush is chunky which lead me to believe it would be like the Colossal but oh, how wrong I was, it provided no length and only makes them look a smidgen thicker..this is all.

My eye with the mascara:

I tried really hard to make this mascara look good in the shot but is honestly how my eye looked, actually, the photos make the mascara stand out a bit more than it actually did. If you compared it with the Stiletto, it looked like this eye didn't even have mascara on. It wasn't as uniform in its application as the Stiletto, that coated all lashes equally regardless of size whilst this missed out some of the smaller ones. It even only half coated the normal length lashes and then overcoated others. If there was a set routine as to which it overcoated and undercoated I could compensate
but it just does as it wishes.

Repurchase?
No way Jose. This did nothing for my lashes apart from just make them a bit blacker and I expected a lot more from this mascara. The colour is a very nice black but it doesn't translate over to the lashes in the same way and so I've given it to my mum to use as an emergency "root dye" so that she can just coat her roots with it when she's caught short. She said that it's worked very well, gives her a nice black colour and doesn't rub off on your hands when you touch your hair. So, if it doesn't work for you and you dye your hair black, use it as a mid-term treatment.