This New Clean Mascara Just Became My Holy Grail For Full Lifted Lashes

As if their schedule is right on par with the shift to bold, moody makeup looks for the fall, Beautycounter launched their Think Big All-in-One Mascara this month, which promises to provide soft, full, and luscious eyelashes. With its clean formulation, this new volumizing and lengthening mascara aligns perfectly with the brand’s clean stance on beauty. Now, you might be wondering, Well, if a mascara is going onto my lashes, do I *really* have to worry about the formula being clean? The short answer is yes.

Traditional mascaras use a pigment known as carbon black, which sounds like the color you’d want on your lashes for a fuller effect. But, unfortunately, carbon black is derived from heavy petroleum products like black tar, and is a potential carcinogen that may increase the chances of developing cancer.

When you apply mascara, it is inevitable that the formula transfers from lash hairs to the skin and eyes with melting, rubbing, and general flaking. Unfortunately, this means that every time you use a formula that contains carbon black, you run the risk of absorbing the harmful ingredient, too.

Clean beauty brands understand this fact and regularly release new clean mascara formulas that promise a solid hold to your lashes without the harmful ingredients that other mascaras contain. Yet, most clean formulas tend to leak and flake much quicker than traditional formulas, and the all-day hold that your traditional go-to mascara offers almost seems non-existent in many clean formulas.

Beautycounter made a note of this when formulating their Think Big All-in-One Mascara, promising to leave out all the health-damaging chemicals while keeping the lifting, curling, volumizing, and lengthening aspects that consumers have grown to love. As a health aficionado and someone who would rather leave the house without concealer than without mascara, I jumped at the opportunity to give Beautycounter’s Think Big All-in-One Mascara a try. I thought, maybe, just maybe, this will be my answer to my life-long yearning for a falsie-like lift to my lashes while dabbling in a product that is *actually* safe for my health.

Understanding My Bare Lashes

Thanks to my Mediterranean genes, I am, in short, a hairy girl (ahem, no, a hairy woman). Sure, I have thick, dark tresses that I care for diligently — but, in addition to this, I’ve had a mustache for as long as my memory serves me. Despite my hairy nature, I’ve had a strange relationship with my lashes. Of course, they’ve always been long and dark like my hair everywhere else, but they tend to droop in a way that makes them blend into the darkness that is my lash line. The droop essentially makes them appear non-existent, which always made me wonder *why* my hair everywhere else seemed so prominent, yet the universe couldn’t help me out when it came to my lashes.

As a result, I’ve always turned to mascara for a finishing curl that would show everyone that I have hair along my lash line.

The Think Big All-in-One Mascara

Luckily for me, Beautycounter’s Think Big Mascara offers everything I could have hoped for in a formula, and then some. This mascara claims to add volume, lift, and fullness to the lashes, all with just a straightforward single coating of product. Yet, if you are prone to applying multiple coats of mascara before heading out the door every morning, the formulation itself is creamy in its texture, which makes it ideal for layering without running the risk of creating some flaky, spidery sprouts along your lash line.

But, beauty isn’t skin-deep, and Beautycounter’s Think Big Mascara has more charm than just the finishing look it provides. Along with adding a supple appearance to the lashes, this formula also contains a tripeptide technology that conditions and nourishes the lashes, while panthenol (provitamin B5) moisturizes each individual lash hair, effectively strengthening them. This formula also contains rice bran, calendula, and carnauba waxes, a safer alternative to traditional paraffin — a petrochemical wax found in most mascara formulas that create hold and build.

Aside from these great benefits, the beauty of this mascara lies in its wand. Flexible plastic teeth comprise this wand, and its tapered shape provides length to short lashes and volume where necessary. And then there’s the packaging. Beautycounter’s Think Big Mascara comes in a sexy gold tube in the shape of a bullet, making it the perfect addition to anyone’s chic vanity set-up while remaining compact enough to fit into the tiny shoulder bags that are en vogue nowadays.

My Va-Va-Voom Lashes After Trying Beautycounter’s Mascara

Firstly, I must note one thing that I always appreciated with mascara before getting into the actual effects of the formula: one of my pet peeves is having a wand that picks up too much product whenever I pull it out of its tube. I always find myself combing excess residue onto the tube’s opening before touching the wand to the hairs around my eyes. So I was pleasantly relieved to see that this mascara’s wand picks up the perfect amount of mascara to coat my lashes, without making them look too chunky or wet.

I started by using a zig-zag hand motion to sweep the formula through my lashes from my base to my tip (I find that this technique provides me with the most volume). After a few strokes of the wand, I looked at myself in the mirror and audibly proclaimed, “Wooow.”

I notice that this mascara combs through the lashes in such a way that it deposits intense pigment and lengthens the lashes while also separating them. This leaves my lashes looking like individual lashes rather than clumps of hair that just so happen to sit on my lash line. Plus, it adds a healthy dose of volume and color to the base of my lashes, which I thought was only fakeable with a subtle liner drawn onto the root of my lashes. Additionally, it gives me the curl and lift that I crave, all without using an eyelash curler (but if you do want to use a curler, just remember to do so before applying your mascara, to minimize the risk of breakage).

And, unlike traditional clean mascaras, I noticed these benefits throughout the day. The hold, length, and volume lasted from the morning to after I finished my last bite of dinner that evening.

Do You Need Beautycounter’s Think Big All-in-One Mascara?

I don’t typically put a claim this large in writing, but I think this product merits the praise: Beautycounter’s Think Big All-in-One Mascara is one of the best clean formulas I have ever tried for lifting, thickening, and lengthening the lashes. When comparing this formula to others on the market, it’s evident as to why you should give Beautycounter’s Think Big Mascara a go — at just $27, it is at the same price point as most traditional mascaras sold at major beauty retailers worldwide. But, it contains none of the harmful components that the beauty industry has allowed to exist in mascara for so long. Plus, this mascara is long-lasting, which is a difficult feat when working with a clean formulation.

So, if you’re anything like me and often look for all these benefits in a mascara while holding onto your love for clean beauty, then adding this mascara to your routine is undoubtedly a no-brainer.