Image Source: POPSUGAR Photography / Jessica Harrington
My eyes are my favorite feature, so I'm always looking for ways to enhance them. I love wearing fake lashes [4] for special occasions and getting a lash lift or extensions once or twice a year [5], but that's too much for me to do on a regular basis, so that leaves me with makeup as my only method for giving my eyes a boost.
My everyday makeup routine involves curling my eyelashes [6] and applying a few coats of my favorite mascara, but I stumbled upon a makeup hack on TikTok [7] for making your lashes look fuller with just a tube of mascara and a small brush. In the makeup tutorial [8] by makeup artist Megan Lavallie [9], she explains that instead of tight-lining her waterline [10] or applying liner to her upper lash line, she likes to use mascara to thicken her upper lashes. She does this by dipping a tiny pointed brush into her mascara and wiggling it in between each individual lash. She then applies her mascara as she normally would. The end result is a super-defined lash line, sans any eyeliner.
@meganlavallie [11] Using @Rare Beauty mascara #mascaratip [12] #makeuptutorial [13]
♬ Right Down the Line - Gerry Rafferty [14]
As someone who doesn't like wearing too much liner — save for a teeny-tiny baby wing on the outer corners of my eye — I loved the idea of making my lashes pop without meticulously tight-lining my top lashes (which is difficult and closes off my eye, as she mentions in the video). With my Essence Makeup Double Trouble Mascara [15] ($6) and an angled liner brush, like the Sephora PRO Eye Liner Brush #22 [16] ($16), I dabbed my brush into the mascara wand and then, following instructions, tried to get the product in between my lashes.
I wasn't expecting the process to be tricky, so I was surprised when it didn't go very smoothly. I'm not sure if it's because I have a lot of eyelashes, but I found it a little difficult to get the brush into my lash line without getting it all over my eyelid. To make it a little easier, I turned the brush horizontal instead of holding it vertically and used the same technique to smudge the mascara pigment underneath my lash line.
Image Source: POPSUGAR Photography / Jessica Harrington
As soon as I did this, I started to see a difference in my lashes. The side using the mascara hack already looked fuller, even without mascara on my actual eyelashes (see the picture above). After finishing one eye, I applied two coats of mascara before repeating on the other side.
Despite having to modify the hack slightly, I'm impressed with how much of a difference this trick made in my makeup. Even with mascara, my lash line tends to look a little faint, but this helped me really define it in a natural-looking way. I'll definitely be using this trick in my everyday makeup routine in the future.