What it is: Fresh‘s Supernova mascara (from their Magic Wands Mini Mascara Duo)

The brush and black: Yep, you read that right! I wanted to talk about the black-ness of this formula, because it could be darker. I don’t really want to complain about it, though, because it is decently black… it’s just that I’ve seen better. As for the brush? I think it’s a great size, not too fat and not too small, and for whatever reason, the shape of the wand works quite well with my lashes. (It’s slightly more narrow in the center.)

The lashes: What I really love about Supernova is that it gives gorgeously soft, feathery lashes — both visually and tangibly! Unlike with my normal tubing mascara, my lashes are touchably soft all day long. This formula is a little more on the “wet” side, which I think helps give the featheriness of lashes (something I adore, for the record.) It’s not hard to get a clump-free lash out of this, even without an extra spoolie or lash comb. 

It does let out some of the curl in my lash, though, likely for the same reason (the wetness of the fomula.) But as long as I “push” my lashes while Supernova is drying, the curl can be saved! (“Pushing” -> using my finger to push the ends of my lashes up and towards my eye, causing a bend in the lash and letting the mascara dry it into a curl.) Howevermuch of a curl there is when the mascara sets, that’s how much of a curl you’ll have at the end of the day — it holds the curl quite pretty well once it’s dried a bit.

The wear: Unfortunatly, this has one major downside — smudgeing, after about three hours of wear. It’s nothing too major (no “raccoon eyes” here,) but it’s enough to irritate me, and it’s enough to marr a really bright look. That said, though, if you do neutral dark smokey eyes all the time, the smudgeing will likely look negligable!

WAIT. I lied, it has two downsides. The other: the price. I liked the price of my mini tube, but the normal retail price for a full tube of this is $25US/$31CAD, and that’s just… ridiculous.

The verdict? I really like Supernova, and as long as I know I’ll have access to a washroom every three hours or so to clean up smudgeing, I do wear it quite a bit. It keeps my lashes softer and more feathery than my go-to tubing mascara, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to apply! (Any of you who have tried tubing mascaras will know what I’m talking about — it’s hard to comb out all those clumps before its dried!) I will be rebuying the mini tube, I think, but there’s no way in heck I’d pay $31 for this — or any other — mascara.

Availability: in the Magic Wands duo, or on its own.