L’Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara

L’Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara isn’t exactly brand-new cutting edge at this point, but I never claimed to only bring you the newest of the new. You see, sometimes when an interesting product launches, people lose their minds and declare that it is glorious and perfect without giving themselves adequate time to try it out and see how it behaves. To borrow from a Lonely Island song, “Nah, that ain’t me.”

As much as I enjoy bareMinerals Flawless definition, I cannot swallow an $18 per tube mascara habit (and I just missed the Ulta 21 Days of Beauty 50% off sale day for it), so I will keep trying drugstore options until I find, “the one.” I picked up a tube of L’Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga mascara in Black-Brown when it was just launching, but only opened it last month to avoid having a ton of tubes open at a time to minimize waste).

Let’s check it out!

Here’s the tube – I personally prefer sleeker tube designs, but this one has a flat side that tapers on the cap for easy grip during application.

L'Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga MascaraL’Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara

I went with black-brown, and this is what that looks like out of the tube – a cool brown, certainly nothing black-ish about it. The tapered wand features full, soft-plastic bristles.

L'Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara

I wiped it off a bit to try to show the bristles in slightly better detail – unfortunately this mascara comes with the wand already inserted, so I couldn’t get a pristine photo for you.

L'Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara

Now the neatest thing about this product, or at least its applicator, is that the neck of the wand bends. Now, I didn’t find myself needing it to bend during my own application, but I can see why this would be appealing for others depending on their application preferences. This is just one way it bends – the Miss Manga mascara wand is actually capable of full 360-degree flexing.

L'Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara

So now to show you what it looks like on – here’s my bare lashes. They have been curled, but have no product on them whatsoever.
L'Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara - Bare LashesNow, I have applied one coat to my right eye (which is pictured left). Left lashes are still bare.

L'Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascara - Right Eye Coated (left to you), Left BareNow, the left-side lashes as well as the lower-lashes have one coat of Miss Manga mascara.

missmanga07There is a noticeable difference once my lashes have been coated with Miss Manga. They appear slightly longer and thicker, but I opted to show just one coat’s efficacy.

Here, they look thicker but almost spider-y at the ends; I am not fond of this, but that doesn’t make it a bad product. With additional coats, I’m confident that this will build lash volume as well as length, but it may cause clumping. Also, it was a difficult to apply onto the lower lashes due to the size of the wand. You may be able to avoid both of these things by removing the excess product from the brush before applying; the type and layout of the bristles cause it to pick up entirely too much product for easy and tidy application anyway.

I realize, in retrospect, that this particular color wasn’t the best to demonstrate the punch it packs. This shade would be create for a subtle daytime look, but isn’t really what you would want to choose for a classic or dramatic mascara look.

In all, I’m happy with this as a daytime mascara. I don’t think it is my new holy grail, but I do think it is worth trying especially considering you can get it for under $8 at Ulta, at mass merchants, and at retail drugstores.

On a side note, when I first read about this product I was surprised. “Surely it was a typo,” I thought. It must be, “Magna,” lashes. They couldn’t have really released, “Manga Mascara.” Not here, not in the United States.

Yep. They did. I then proceeded to watch a bunch of YouTube beauty gurus who simply aren’t familiar with the term (no fault of their own, of course–if they aren’t about, ‘dat life,’ why would they know?) struggle with it. One confidently proclaimed that manga is, “a style of Japanese Animation.” Not quite – more akin to comics, but this is a beauty blog, not a blog about my other fandoms, so I’ll get on with it. Picture huge, anime-style eyes. This volumizing mascara is intended to deliver superior lash volume to help open your eyes up and kind of give that look (without being creepy like Anastasiya Shpagina).

Have you tried Miss Manga mascara? Is it, “the one,” for you?