Mascara Monday: MAC Instacurl Lash Mascara

The first thing you might notice about MAC’s Instacurl Lash is the crazy looking packaging; It reminds me of an elephant tusk, animal claw or tooth. What you might not notice at first sight, is that the lid of the mascara actually can be twisted, and that transforms the synthetic wand from straight to curved with a simple twist! The synthetic bristle brush has plenty of bristles, and looks almost bare when it comes out of the tube, but there is in fact plenty of mascara housed within the short bristles.Formula-wise, Instacurl is neither thick nor overly wet in texture, and I did find it quite black (certainly darker than Pro Beyond Twisted Lash). I didn’t experience any flaking or smudging, but it did remove easily with my regular oil cleanser and no extra work. MAC claims that Instacurl “curls lashes upon application, holds all day, boosting your look with plenty of oomph”. Given this description, I was expecting incredible lift and lots of volume, but sadly this really didn’t perform at all for me. While I loved the look of the brush, regardless of if I used it straight or curved I couldn’t get much definition nor volume in my lashes.

Even more disheartening than the lack of volume, it completely flattened out the curl I put in my lashes! My lashes naturally point down, and since they are fine in density it is important to me to wear mascara that keeps the lift I put in them with a lash curler; It’s a true make or break for me. Because my lashes wilted almost instantly after application, Instacurl almost made my lashes look shorter than they actually are, if you can believe it – which instantly has this is the “oh hell no” pile. 


I did find that this performed well on the lower lash line, but I just can’t endorse a product that has such high claims and then doesn’t rise nearly close enough to those standards. My curiosity was so peaked by Instacurl Lash, and I do think the concept of an adjustable brush is incredible, but the formula leaves plenty to be desired. I think perhaps if the actually brush had been narrower, it would have gotten to the root of the lash better, creating more lift as it passed root to tip, but with the chunky brush it just seemed to weight the lashes and yet not even deposit enough product to give thickness at least.

Overall, I have to say this is by far one of the more disappointing products I have tried in a long while. I give major kudos to MAC for thinking outside the box with Instacurl Lash, and the brand has some seriously unique products down the pipeline (wait till I show you guys the Spellbinder Shadows!!) but this one fell flat, pun intended.