I test mascara as part of my job, and this one's staying power seriously impressed me

I firmly believe that mascara is one of the most, if not *the* most, subjective of all make-up bag buys. Not only can our preferences in lash look vary greatly, but our natural lashes do, too. In other words, everybody's list of criteria for the best mascara is (at least a little) different—while some people like waterproof formulas that deliver day-long volume, other's prefer a more natural finish. Recently, the specs of the new Vieve Modern Mascara really piqued my interest.

Promising buildable volume, length and curl that won't smudge, this particular mascara took the brand's founder, make-up artist Jamie Genevieve, a whole three years to develop—so naturally my expectations were high. After testing it for the best part of a working week, here are my honest thoughts. 

Modern Mascara is housed in the classy-looking gold rectangular tube above, which is very weighty, giving it an extra premium feel—at £23 it's obviously not as affordable as the best drugstore mascara, but it's by no means the most expensive on the market. The only other details are the brand name on one side and "Modern Mascara" on another; it's minimalistic and chic. I am somebody who does appreciate a good bit of packaging but, let's be honest, it's more about the formula inside.

The wand features an hourglass-shaped brush, which in general my opinion of is very 50/50. On the one hand, they're useful for catching shorter inner lashes and amplifying the outer ones. On the other, I find that they can be paired with a mega-volumising formula when my preference is for lengthening—my natural lashes are a but 'meh', an average length but quite sparse, and so anything that clumps lots of them together in the name of volume gets a hard no from me.

I have tested a lot of mascaras in my lifetime, both as a consumer and during my career in the beauty industry. When I applied Modern Mascara for the first time, it built pretty well as promised, with the brush shape going some way to lift my lashes, and had a great, rich black colour. I thought to myself that they looked pretty nice, and packed a good bit of drama without looking mega clumpy, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I was absolutely blown away at this point. (Stick with me here, as it's about to get interesting.)

On testing day one, I probably applied Modern Mascara at about 7:45am. I got the tube into central London, worked in a coffee shop for a bit, nipped into M&S, met up with a friend and fellow beauty journalist for a co-working session before attending an event together that evening. In other words, it was a full day of wear featuring lots of running around. I usually feel the need to top up my mascara a little if it's been a long day, so at around 6pm before leaving for said event, I went to touch up my make-up.

Let me tell you, this mascara looked the same as it did when I left the house that morning. I was genuinely so pleasantly surprised that I proceeded to tell my friend all about it. My oily skin hadn't caused it to print or smudge everywhere (its usual M.O.), and it held the results of my lash curler in place, too. I was now impressed. It looked the same when I got home and it was time to take it off. I was impressed still.

Because of my sparse lashes, I've also since found that I get better results by wiping some of the product off the brush, but this is partly down to my personal preference. Full disclosure, after another long day of wear I did notice the tiniest amount of flaking under my eyes once I got home, but other than that, for me this mascara pretty much stays in place and I've not yet felt the need to top it up—something I do even with some longstanding favourites. So while I might personally have liked to see a little more lengthening power—other people won't have this issue—I found Vieve Modern Mascara can really go the distance.