Mascara Is Dead, Long Live Mascara

This morning, I thought I lost my eyelash curler and ran around my room in panic for a good 15 minutes: That’s how personally invested I am in eye makeup. But it seems the industry may not agree.

According to a report by Business of Fashion, mascara sales are slowing down as lash tinting and extensions have gained popularity. Newer and successful makeup brands like Fenty Beauty and KKW Beauty don’t even sell mascara, since it is so time-consuming and expensive to produce. Other cosmetics upstarts like Glossier have made mascara, but only after “after amassing a loyal customer base they know will buy it.” Mascara will always be around, but perhaps people are moving away from it and towards other, more expensive and high-maintenance solutions for the “problem” of having eyelashes that are makeup-free.

As we look ahead to a potentially mascara-less future, where people have bi-weekly lash extension appointments auto-booked into their calendars, I want to take this opportunity to bid adieu to mascara as I have known and (maybe) loved it.

Goodbye to mascara face.

Goodbye to mascara gunk, the boogers of eyeballs, a self-replenishing resource that comes back no matter how many times you try to wipe it away.

Goodbye to dried up mascara flecks that inevitably cover your entire face 20 minutes after you leave the house, and immediately embed themselves deep, deep into your pores.

Goodbye to spiky eyelashes that stab you in your own eyeball.

Goodbye to eyelash clumps, which you have to get rid of by rubbing vigorously at your waterline in the office bathroom, until your whole entire eyeball turns red and you look like you’ve been crying.

Goodbye to crying with mascara on, so you end up with semi-permanent streaks running down your face (actually, this one is genuinely fun because I love to be overly dramatic when I cry on public transport).

Goodbye to that funky alcohol smell of expired mascara, which you still use because come on, mascara expires so quickly, you can’t keep buying new tubes of this shit.