Mascara and I haven’t be friends before. We haven’t been friends once in my whole lifetime. It’s a funny thing when you realize you’re harboring fear for…a beauty product? Eye loss has been a learning journey like anything else in my life. But makeup has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve been able to learn about. I’ve learned that I really adore certain parts of myself. And on days when I wasn’t feeling good about my eye loss, makeup helped me feel prettier.

How does someone develop a fear of mascara anyway? Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been trying to experiment with makeup and learn how to accutate my best features. But mascara never seemed to coopoarate. It actually made me feel worse about myself, because I didn’t like the way my eyes looked. And of course by applying mascara, I needed to make contact with the one part of myself I disliked the most.

Eye makeup really intimidates me, even to this day. My very patient husband will tell you that he knows to stay away when the eye makeup comes out. There have been so many moments where I felt frustrated, and just downright sad that my lashes looked wonky. Because of my surgeries, my eyelashes are a bit more unique than most. Some of them go slightly in the opposite direction than the rest, some of them are “stacked” one on top of the other, and I don’t have that many. I would often lose my patience when a product clumped, and a few tears would sprout up. Thus, of course, ruining my whole face of makeup, and then more water works. It was a vicious cycle, so after a few attempts at eye makeup at 15, I totally avoided it, unless a pro was helping me. That’s right, I’ve forgone mascara, and most eye makeup products for 11 years.

Photo Credit: bestdiy.tips

You might be wondering what brought all this on, how I suddenly became interested in mascara all of a sudden. I’ve made it this far in life without it. Truthfully, I think one of the reasons is because I’ve been avoiding it, and it is one of the most used beauty products of all time. And the second reason is because of a very sweet girl I met at a beauty preview a few weeks ago. She applied Lancôme’s Monsieur Big mascara on me, and I was shocked how great my eye(s) looked with one coat. I didn’t have any eyeliner on, but it seemed to lift my whole face. I immediately stated to wonder, could this be something I could do myself? Should I try mascara again? Makeup is supposed to be fun after all. My goal is to learn how to use more eye makeup in my everyday life, and not feel afraid to try it.

So, I’ve decided to finally take on mascara, literally and figuratively. I’m curious to hear what you’ve been using for the past year, week, or even lifetime. I want to hear what your favorite mascara is! Tell me in the comments. xx