Mascara is one beauty product I cannot do without. One of the products I received in the BeautyBulletin makeup hamper that I won was the L’OREAL LASH ARCHITECT 4D MASCARA. With this review I am not going to go into a long winded story about the product because to me this review is very simple - it's a great mascara (quite possibly one of the best mascaras I have ever used).

My lashes are more defined, thicker looking, a beautiful rich black colour and wonderfully lengthened. The wand is incredibly good at separating the lashes and does not cause any clumping what so ever. I have been using this mascara for 2 weeks now and each day the mascara looks good for the entire day.

What I like:
My favourtie thing about this mascara is that even after 2 coats my lashes do not feel hard and brittle. They feel soft and natural.

What I don't like:
It promises a false eyelash effect which to me is very misleading. There is no mascara out there that can take the few lashes we naturally have and create a look of a hundred more lashes. They should market it more in line with enhancing what you naturally have, because it does that perfectly. So to be upfront with all of you, save yourself some money and go buy yourself a pair of false lashes if that is the look you want.

Tip:
To add a little extra drama to my lashes: After applying a coat or two of mascara and letting it dry, apply one more coat to only the outer lashes gently sweeping them to the side. The lashes will look thicker and have more length, this creates a more sultry look.

The recommended retail price is R195 and to me it is a little pricier than a lot of other great mascaras, but I think I might buy this once my free one is finished...the only "problem" is that I have 3 more mascaras that came in my hamper so it'll be a while before I need to think about buying a new mascara. By that time I may have forgotten about this one.

I had high hopes that this would be the mascara to give me those voluminous Kim Kardashian eye lashes, especially when I saw the magazine ads. However I was underwhelmed particularly because it was a bit pricey for my student budget and the bristle design made the application harder. It isn't completely terrible though, it works. I could see the length difference easily, it doesn't clump or run and it has staying power without being difficult to remove. In terms of volume and the curve effect one would have to apply many coats to really see a slight increase in thickness and lash curve so it works better as night time mascara. As for texture, I'm really not sure what they mean but my lashes felt the same and looked the same just slightly longer with a bit of volume and curve.