Barry M Extreme Black Waterproof Mascara

Mascara and Me: To be fair, Mascara isn't something that I put a great deal of effort into choosing. I wear it, and that's about as far as I go emotionally. As long as it doesn't clump, I'm not really too bothered.

In the past I've bought Rimmel ones because when Rimmel release new mascara's they always seem to sell them cheaply for a limited time, but when my Rimmel Sexy Curves ran out recently, I was a bit disappointed to discover that Rimmel didn't have anything cheap, and I really was not willing to pay over £7 for something that, to me, isn't a big deal.

Black mascara is my staple that I wear 95% of the time, but I also own blue and green BarryM ones, for when I want something different. So, with that in mind, I took a look at their black ones, saw that this one was relatively cheap and boasted that it "Volumises. Lengthens. Thickens." I'd like to say these three words had me sold...but actually the word "cheap" rings truer!

Packaging: It's okay, I guess. The pink is quite pretty, but compared to the packaging of a lot of other brands, it's a bit same-old and not really very inspiring. There's nothing about it that grabs my attention, and I doubt it would jump out at me in a line up of mascaras.

The Brush: When I think of mascaras that claim to be "volumising", I automatically think of wands with large brushes, with long bristles, or like the Sexy Curves wand, has bristles of varying lengths. This one however, is really quite small, with very short bristles, which I initially couldn't imagine would be able to add any kind of volume. The product on the brush also seemed quite clumpy, so I didn't really have much hope that it would do much better for my eyelashes.

Also, when you compare the brush to other recent mascara wands, it looks quite dated, again especially next to the Sexy Curves' rubbery and curvy brush, which just looks more creative and "modern".

What did I think: When I was applying it, I was still a bit sceptical about it's ability to do what the packaging claimed, because it just didn't tick the boxes of others. However, it definitely appeared to prove me wrong. My lashes weren't exactly any more volumised than with any other mascara, but then I'm not really convinced that any mascaras are really capable of achieving them. I didn't, however, clump at all, and remembering how clumpy the brush looked, I was amazed! I didn't really thicken the lashes either, but the lashes certainly seemed to "seperate" nicely, which surprised me, because this is something that I usually get from mascaras with longer bristles. I'm assuming that the advantage of the small bristles is that it reaches the shorter lashes that a lot of other mascaras miss, by having longer bristles.

Would I buy it again: Probably not. I liked that it didn't clump, but it didn't achieve anything else that it promised. Plus, the Waterproof"ness" was appealing, except when it came to taking it off. I seriously had to scrub really hard to get the mascara off with my normal Eye Make Up Remover, and I just looked like a Panda. I've never had trouble removing any other waterproof mascara, so not really sure what the deal was with this one!