A New Year’s Eve fête is a perfect opportunity to grab your beauty gumption with both hands and try something new, something a little outside your comfort zone, something a little scary — a mascara with a wand tip that looks like a medieval weapon, perhaps?
With its mace-like spiked-sphere wand, Givenchy’s Phenomen’Eyes was the biggest news in mascara innovation when it launched in the U.S. in 2008. This fall, it became available to Canadians, exclusively at Sephora.
Givenchy artistic director Nicolas Degennes told Metro the idea came after years of dissatisfaction with regular mascaras, which he finds tend to clump and coat lashes unevenly.
At first he bent the brushes in an effort to create a shape that could hit every lash, including those at the inner corners of the eyes, and he used sewing needles to as a lash separator.
Eventually he took scissors to the brushes, which sparked the concept for a new shape. According to Degennes, Phenomen’Eyes is all about a meticulous finish.
“The brush is designed not only to look good, but also to make application extremely easy. It can be manoeuvered vertically, horizontally or on a slant to catch all the lashes, even the tiniest ones,” he said. “(The mascara) can also be applied on the outer corners with amazing precision by holding the brush vertically under the eye and pushing the lashes upwards one by one to coat them with the mascara. With just a few flicks, the lashes are made up right down to the roots.”
The brush allows the user to build up lashes that need more attention. Also important is the formula, which Degennes revealed is a water-based recipe with a cutting-edge polymer that sets lashes in their curve with just one stroke.
Phenomen’Eyes retails for $32. Also now available is L’Oréal Paris’ new Telescopic Explosion mascara, a $12.95 drugstore version with a similar brush design, albeit slightly slimmer, more elongated.
If the new shape in mascara brushes is too much for you, you can still try something a little different with CoverGirl LashBlast Luxe, an iridescent metallic mascara formula with a giant wand that intimidated some when it first launched, too ($8.99 at drugstores and mass retailers).
