Whether or not you care about TikTok, you can thank it alone for rescuing brown mascara from the discontinued doldrums. Before Charlotte Tilbury’s berry-toned brown (“Dream Pop”) Pillow Talk mascara (£26) went viral last year, it had become pretty slim pickings for lovers of softer, more natural- looking lashes. Now, more than 20 million views of #brownmascara later, they are breeding like guppies. Which is good news for blondes, redheads and beauty minimalists of every hair and skin tone.
It seems off-message for Glossier, the “clean girl makeup” brand, to have ever been without brown mascara, but the oversight has been corrected with its new milk chocolatey version of Lash Slick (£16). This claims, like its black stablemate, to offer a “baby extensions” look – that is, subtle length and defined, separated lashes. Fans of thicker, draft-excluder style eye pelmets will find it too modest, but if you’re looking for an understated, cool, casual look for jeans and hoodie days, it’s spot on. And it has notably good staying power.
But brown needn’t be worn only casually. There’s something very chic, confident and flattering about brown on an otherwise full face of makeup.
Margot Robbie’s makeup artist, Pati Dubroff, uses brown mascara to make red carpet looks more sophisticated. Dubroff loves Beauty Pie’s Uber Volume Boost mascara in Brownie (£10 to members), and as the owner of fine, puny lashes, so do I. It gives me a thicker, fluffier look and has the kind of full bristly brush applicator I need to get right down into the gaps. It’s an excellent mascara in any shade, but the espresso-toned version is flattering without looking slight.
If you like the idea of brown but can’t bear to be parted from your beloved black, you could try a brown-black mascara like L’Oréal Paris Lash Paradise (£12.99), whose Moonlight Noir shade is only a fraction out of your comfort zone. Or, you could take an old tip I learned many years ago from venerable makeup artist Mary Greenwell, and coat your upper lashes with black but lower ones with brown. It looks softer and more convincing than two matching black decks, and somehow opens up the shape of the eyes.
An ideal mascara for the job is Clinique Lash Power (£23): it’s among my most-used products of all time and now available in Dark Chocolate. Its outstanding smudge-proof formula simply does not budge, smudge or migrate cheekwards.
