I can’t get my head around the fact that Essence have a whopping 13 different mascaras, which is just incredible especially for such a budget friendly beauty brand. I’ve tried a fair few Essence mascaras and my best until now had been the trio of Essence Forbidden Volume Mascaras, which I believe have now been discontinued. I have a couple of other Essence mascaras in my “to try” stash, but I decided to open the Essence Instant Volume Boost Mascara as my next mascara to try.
I really like that even though Essence have 13 different mascaras, the formulas and brushes really do vary considerably across the range and they’re not like Maybelline who reuse the same brush/tube design for ‘new’ versions. The Essence Instant Volume Boost Mascara has a pretty chunky purple tube and contains a very generous 14ml of product, typically mascaras only contain 7ml to 10ml so 14ml for just £3.50.
Considering how big the Essence Instant Volume Boost Mascara’s tube is, I expected the brush to be pretty large with long bristles but the bristles are so short and are in a spiralled design around the wand. This mascara interested me the most from the mascaras I need to try as it claims to have “flower shaped fibres” which sounds so weird to me as I’d only thought of fibres as being tiny strands.
However I can’t see anything flower shaped even when examining the wand with a light up magnifying mirror so I’ll just have to take Essence’s word for it, but you can see a small amount of fibres on the wand. It also claims that it only takes 10 seconds to apply, but I don’t necessarily agree with that as you could technically put any mascara on in only ten seconds but the effect wouldn’t be great as the lashes won’t be evenly coated but it’s easy to apply and layers nicely on the second coat.
I haven’t had any clumping issues with this mascara whatsoever and I’ve also not had an issue with the fibres dropping into my eyes. I do like how effective fibre mascaras are, but the discomfort of the dropping fibres always puts me off but there is no discomfort with the Essence Instant Volume Boost Mascara.
I would agree that this is a volumising mascara but I’ve also found it to be lengthening, but it doesn’t create a curl in my lashes so I like to use lash curler beforehand. In terms of longevity, it lasts well on my eyes without smudging but there is a tiny amount of flaking which I could only see when using a 10 x magnified mirror.
I really don’t know how Essence can make such amazing mascaras for such a low, affordable price and I cannot recommend this longwearing, volumising mascara enough for only £3.50 from Wilko.
Have you ever tried any of the Essence mascaras yourself?
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