Every time I spend a fair amount of money on a mascara (and I would say anything over £15 is steep since the majority of mascara’s try are crap) a part of me dies. Remember that.
Now, I was a bit spendy-happy when Boots had their amazing shopping evenings (£12 points for ever £50 spend) so as well as buying gifts I got a few make up bits for myself.
I haven’t used Chanel mascara for a while so I bought their Inimitable Intense Mascara in Rouge Noir, a deep blackened plum. You can’t go wrong with Chanel. Right?
I paid £21.50 for this – that is STEEP for a mascara, no? I have paid that amount of Jill Stuart mascara and also for Dior mascara (love them) but it always makes me cringe.
Here is the packaging:
The packaging is sleek:
Rouge Noir in a mascara sounds amazing (YSL Faux Cils does coloured mascara very well I think and their burgundy, not the purple, BURGUNDY, is amazing on brown eyes).
In the Inimitable though, it’s more a deep flat aubergine plum…it doesn’t show up THAT much. So I wouldn’t buy it for the colour alone.
The brush is a spiky plastic one – I don’t mind these type of brushes:
Here is the colour:
So there I was, all happy, tra-la-la ready to try this gorgeous looking mascara.
Tried once.
Tried twice.
Tried thrice.
Each time baby, I got terrible results. Clumpy. Bitty. I won’t even try to answer the ‘did it lengthen, did it add curl, did it add volume’ question because I couldn’t get over the strange clumping.
Are you ready for the close up?
Here:
It’s seriously not good. It made me look like my lashes were falling out. It looks lumpy and bitty. Could is be a bad batch? It is possible. Either way I can’t believe I paid £21.50 for this.
Another view:
Verdict:
Unfortunately in the UK it’s not that easy to return make up so I guess this can sit in a drawer somewhere. I am not in the mood to argue with a Chanel SA quite frankly…I already had to argue with a Shu Uemura SA in Harvey Nichols last week about a lipstick I said was pink and she said was wine…I digress.
I wouldn’t recommend this at all and I love Chanel! Sigh.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh my god that is so disappointing! I have the ordinary black Inimitable Intense and it’s one of the best mascaras I’ve ever used, so I’m really shocked to see how bad Rouge Noir is…maybe you could try taking photos of how it looks on back to the SA? Although they’re so stubborn they’ll probably just try and blame you, bah. Shame on you Chanel, shame!
Reply
Yep.
I got a sample from this particular mascara in black, with my ‘Feeling’magazine.
So okay, I figure, since I can’t use it (I’m allergic to god knows which ingredient in black mascara and therefore I only use brown mascara, which works just fine), I’ll give it to my boyfriend’s mother, who’s a sucker for expensive products. So yah. She tried it and it looked exactly the same.
It’s a shame really…
Reply
I adore the black inimitable and to me it is perfection, I had the exact same with the rouge noir tho,k awful. I reviewed it over on @britbeautyblog.
I got the purple for christmas so wonder whether the formula will follow my much loved black or the shitty rouge noir…
Reply
I’ve tried the plain black one with no issues, but I didn’t really love it either. I hate shelling out money for mascara too so I know your pain :-/
Reply
Now that’s some shoddy mascara. Can’t help thinking it’s old or a bad tube?
Reply
my goodness….thank you for the warning! I’ll stick to Dior.
Reply
It’s strange that many people say they didn’t have a problem with the black one, because as I stated before, my boyfriend’s mother had the same clumping and everything with the black.
Reply