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Mascara is a desert island make-up product for most. Making your natural lashes look longer, fuller and more defined, the right formula can create that envious wide-eyed and brighter look. Feathered, fluttery lashes have always been a gold standard in the beauty world, with the earliest use tracing right back to the Ancient Egyptians. But our modern idea of mascara has its roots in the mid-19th Century.
Eugene Rimmel, a French perfumer and chemist, developed the first commercial mascara in 1830. Made from petroleum jelly and coal dust, it formed a black paste that could be rubbed against the lashes with a dampened brush. Unsurprising, it was very messy.
Rimmel named his formula “mascaro”, which is “mask” in Spanish, as it was meant to mask imperfections in eyelashes, rather than enhance them. Rimmel fast became synonymous with mascara and his name is used to this day as a generic term for mascara in some European languages.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that Rimmel developed its mascara into a tube form. Now, the global beauty bemouth has a formula for every need, from lengthening and curling to waterproof or volumising products.
Much loved for its efficacious yet affordable mascaras (the range starts from £4.99), the latest formula in its roster is the thrill seeker extreme mascara. Promising to take your lashes from zero to 100 in a single sweep, it boasts a tapered fibre brush that’s designed to grab and coat individual lashes for instant volume. Costing just £12.99, does the new launch from the world’s first mascara brand deliver?
How I tested
To see if Rimmel’s thrill seeker extreme mascara deserves a spot in my make-up arsenal, I tested it over a couple of days to assess its bold credentials. I rarely leave the house without a mascara, so I’ve tried 100s of formulas in my time. When testing Rimmel’s, I considered ease of application, the lengthening and volumising benefits and its longevity. Here’s my verdict on the thrill seeker extreme mascara.