The War of the Wands

Mascara brushes have been expanding faster than J. Lo’s belly. The concept of the extra-large wand isn’t brand new (Benefit introduced Bad Gal Mascara in 2002 and Dior Beauté’s Dior Show came out in 2004). But, recently, the steroidally-large brush, supposedly designed to bestow copious amounts of pigment to lashes, has spawned a slew of new mascaras, all with giant wands and in-your-face adjectives. In just the past few months, our mascara bin has been loaded up with a plethora of new lengtheners, among them Neutrogena Healthy Volume, Cargo Texas Lash, Stila Major Major Lash, Avon Super Shock and the biggest, by just a lash, Lorac Lotsa Lash. While standard mascara brushes are usually around 2 centimeters in length, all these new ones clock in at around 3 centimeters, and are proportionally fatter to boot. Of course, no one would ever fess-up to me-too motivation, but points must be given to Avon’s Global Creative Color Director, Jillian Dempsey. When she recently introduced Super Shock to a small group of editors, she wagged the big new brush in the air and, laughed, “Watch out, Dior!”