This affordable make-up artist brand has one of *the* best mascaras on the market - how does its new one compare?

Ask a beauty editor what they think of Sculpted by Aimee and you are almost guaranteed to get a positive reaction. The products perform well—Satin Silk Foundation is my go-to for big events—without extortionate price tags, so it’s not surprising it’s become such a crowd pleaser. With such a passionate, hardworking and all-round lovely founder, it's great to see the brand continue to thrive.

But recently a newcomer entered the best Sculpted by Aimee products group chat: LashLift Mascara. Promising “both high volume and length”, and with results on Aimee’s own lashes that’d make anybody without a modicum of make-up knowledge do a double take, it certainly seems like a surefire hit.

Now, the brand’s My Mascara is already up there in my personal best mascara hall of fame. You know, the ones whose results others struggle to beat, which is always in my make-up bag. So, how well does LashLift perform and will it make it into those aforementioned ranks? This was what I set out to answer when I got my hands on the newbie.

If I’m being honest about my first impressions, I was somewhat surprised by the packaging. It’s a large, metallic pink cylinder with absolutely no other details aside from the writing. Between this and its larger-than-standard size, it looks more like a foundation or contour stick than mascara. It’s not too prohibitive for me personally, but a smaller and/or more contoured tube would be easier to hold.

Shade-wise, it’s nice to see a mascara go straight in and launch in both black and brown, so both of the two key colour preferences are covered—a welcome sight if your preference is for the best brown mascaras.

As for the application experience, the comb wand packs an impressive 252 bristles and is excellent. I have quite small eyes and sparse lashes, so a big fluffy brush isn’t to my taste. It’s extremely easy to wiggle it through the lashes and distribute the product, rather than feeling like you’re caking it on, while the tapered triangular shape gets into the smaller inner lashes while pushing up those at the outer corner.

As you can see in the shot below, my lashes looked well-defined and weren’t left all clumped together—a pet peeve of mine with a lot of the best mascaras for volume and something I like to avoid all the more as I don’t have lots of lashes. It gives a pretty, kind of fluttery effect. I have experienced a small amount of flaking when wearing it, but you should know that there are very few, if any, mascaras with which I’ve never ever experienced a single incident of smudging or flaking.

Overall, I think LashLift is great. As for which one I prefer for my own lashes, I think I’m leaning towards my old favourite, My Mascara, as you can really build the length I’m lacking. But mascara is so personal and all that really means is I think it’s “better” on my lashes in line with my desired final look. By contrast, my friend and fellow beauty editor Tori Crowther loves it for adding colour and definition to her fairly long, curly lashes and says she’s worn it pretty much every day since she got her hands on it. All in all, this is a nice addition to the Sculpted by Aimee line-up as there’s now a mascara for those to suit different natural lashes.