Maybelline – Volum’ Express The Mega Plush Mascara Review

Back story: Long ago when I was an adorable 4 year old my brother brought home chickenpox’s. I ended up with a horrendous case of those red dots riddling my entire body. The chickenpox’s even took over my eyelids/lash line causing me to lose ALL my eyelashes on one eye. My mother, who is mascara obsessed prayed and prayed to the lord that my lashes would grow back (aw, thanks mom!) and they did grow back!

So what does this story have to do with current day? No, I did not get my mothers undying passion for mascara. I’m not a mascara snob in the least, but with that being said my chicken pox eyelashes are very different from my normal eyelashes. Chickenpox lashes are not as full, a few gaps, and not as long. It’s nothing crazy noticeable as long as I use the right mascara. If I choose the wrong mascara I will have an eye full of nice lashes, with decent fullness/length, while the other eye looks sad and pathetic with spindly lashes and accentuates a few of my gaps missing lashes.

This makes me an excellent mascara tester. I can test mascara to see what it will look like for woman with thinner lashes, and women with average to thicker lashes.

Onto Maybeline  Volum’ Express Mega Plush Mascara. I was using Maybelline Falsies for a while and really liked that mascara, and then I abandoned it after I discovered L’Oreal Voluminous False Fiber lash! But upon upon seeing the Mega Plush commercial chuck full of air dancing feathers and puffyness I fell trap to the lure of ‘less wax’ and ‘gel mouse’. I thought it might make my chickenpox lashes more plump and feathery and thicker! A girls dream!

Obviously I write long reviews, but this review really speaks volumes with my moms comments about me wearing Maybelline Mega Plush Mascara:

I notice my mom staring at me and then she says: “Is that new mascara? Your lashes look like shit. Even your good lashes”.

My feelings weren’t hurt as this was the truth.

This mascara is terrible if you have thinner lashes and looking to build feathery volume. Also not so great if you have thick-ish lashes but still want some umph. The brush has a flexible head that wiggles like a mofo, which didn’t allow me to really get in there and coat my lashes at the base. I swapped out brushes and used a different mascara brush one day thinking this would help. Yes it did help a bit, I was able to firmly coat my lashes at the base. The picture below makes the flexible brush look exciting…. it’s not.

I’m not much of a crazy re-coater, but on my chickenpox lashes I recoat usually once. With this mascara no such luck. Once I tried to re-coat it stuck all my lashes together making my lashes look so thin, wirey and clumpy.

My good lashes didn’t look all that good either. No real volume or fullness. They also looked kind of wirey and brittle. Not plush. I noticed no difference in texture of this mascara… gel mouse can suck it.

Below are some pictures. First picture is me wearing my normal L’Oreal Fiber lash mascara. You can probably notice one set of lashes looks a little less full, but usually I have eyeliner on which helps disguise my uneven lashes. But overall not bad.

Second picture is Plush Lash. CLEARLY you can see the difference between normal lashes and chickenpox lashes. So if you have thinner lashes you’re lashes may end up looking like my right eye. While my left eye, which has thicker lashes isn’t so bad I still don’t think it looked plush especially close up and in person- the picture looks better than it does in person. Yes, it made them look longer…. but I couldn’t control the brush so lashes got stuck together and looked wirey and messy.

In these pictures I REALLY worked at the Mega Plush, took about 5 minutes to carefully apply this. L’Oreal mascara took me maybe… a minute to apply? Notice how my L’Oreal lashes look more plush than Mega Plush!!!!!

Next up, I can’t believe I am admitting this… but I never wash off my eye make up. Terrible. I’m probably going to beauty hell. So the big test for me is if I sleep in my mascara are my lashes ok in the morning? A lot of mascaras clump my lashes and coat them with a stiff glueness that I can’t get off in the morning (often reminds me of eyelash glue where it wads up on your lashes and sticks them together). When this happens I generally can’t wash it off- it’s really weird and yes, totally my fault. And no, I don’t use ANY waterproof mascaras.

So I wake up the next morning after my plush lash disaster and literally my lashes are stuck together. I’m all confused and wondering if I had some drunken wild night involving super glue… then I remembered it was just a new mascara test run. I peel open my eyes, look in the mirror and this mascara had gummed up so bad and stuck together all my lashes… literally. Big balls of mascara glueing my lashes together giving me the look of 4 lashes on each side. Cleary this is not a mascara to sleep in. I tried to wash it off and it took me 3 tries to get all the gluey, clumpy, sticky mess off! ….You’re all thinking ‘serves you right you idiot for sleeping in your mascara’ and I shouldn’t included this I my review because most of you smarties wash your mascara off an won’t run into this… however, what if you’re on a date, it’ goes really well, and you hit his place and ‘fall asleep’ in this mascara? Let me tell you that you will wake up with glued together eyelashes and balls of clumped together lashes. Not sexy. Last I heard men don’t like when you can’t open your eyes and gaze at them.

I read some reviews saying this is a mascara for beginners and I just beg to differ. It really does nothing for my lashes. I don’t know about ya’ll but I want mascara to make my lashes look better, not like “shit” according to my mom.