Naming beauty products has got to be one of the most fun jobs out there. You can re-invent colors, really indulge your worst puns, and maybe even become responsible for the canonization of certain iconic names. That said, a "dusty rose" is a dusty rose is a dusty rose, and a lipstick by any other name would be just as indecisively rosy-nude.
The one product that elicits quite a bit of creative license in its marketing nomenclature: mascara. Sure, all products do, but that's because there are so many visual elements to inspire. Mascara generally comes in two shades: black and brown. Rarely do folks single out a mascara for its nuanced shade of black or brown. People buy mascara for its ability to make their lashes look really, really good — meaning long, voluminous, curled, (and yes, sometimes very dark or glossy). We want show ponies awning our eyelids and Big Mascara has decided that the best way to convey that is to take the conversation into the bedroom.
Look, I'm not here to kink-shame mascara. I'll be the first to say that I love mascara. I'm all about lashes; I probably own about 12-20 tubes of the stuff, each of which I constantly rotate on a daily basis. But it's starting to seem like mascara is that one friend everyone had in high school who got a head start with adolescent promiscuity and loved holding court in the locker room for anyone who would listen to their sordid bedroom maybe-they-did-maybe-they-didn't activities. Cool, I get it — you're getting laid. I just asked if your weekend was good. Calm down.
When I think of racy mascaras with heaps of praise, involving liquidations of exclamatory punctuation and the most dramatic before-and-after photos, Too Faced's Better Than Sex comes to mind, as does Benefit's Bad Gal (and now BadGal Bang), Tarte's Maneater, and even M.A.C.'s Haute & Naughty. Up there is also Urban Decay's Perversion and the "sex-proof" Troublemaker mascara (separate products), which, to be fair, I did review in extreme earnest.
Newest to the sex-themed mascara comes Nars's Climax Mascara, packaged in a glossy, ribbed (for your lashes' pleasure?), cherry-red tube and promising "hardcore volume. Softcore feel." This isn't too out of left field, considering how Nars's Orgasm blush (and now Orgasm collection is one of those aforementioned iconically-named beauty products. I get the reasoning behind naming a product that gives your cheeks a hot flush "orgasm," but I don't think lashes undergo quite the same effect.
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Other than the outright sexy names that would make for some great condom vs. mascara trivia, there are the slightly more PG suggestive brow-wiggling names with even wigglier suggestive marketing copy. That suggestion? Well, there's Physicians Formula's Sexy Booster Va Va Voom Mascara (with a lacy red and black tube that has a stiletto charm on it), Maybelline New York's The Falsies Push Up Drama, Benefit's They're Real… Sure, like your boobs, you'd want your lashes to remain perky and at attention, but boobs still don't pass Instagram's modesty guidelines while lashes most definitely do, if you catch my drift.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if I'm reading a makeup product
description or a condom wrapper.
Obviously, there are tons of really good mascaras out there that don't have illicit names. So many times when talking shop, someone will say something like, "I love that one in the orange tube; it's CoverGirl" or "The best mascara I've tried is the Maybelline one with the tiny brush." It's like they're faces with no names — the tall redhead or the skinny brunette.
On the other hand, I've also had many people tell me, blushing, that their favorite mascara is "the one that says it's better than sex" or they'll say with an eye-roll that they love the mascara but hate the name and proceed to name a mascara with some sort of sexual innuendo in the title. The fact remains — the name is memorable even if the memory is sus. In fact, that Better Than Sex Mascara is actually the most pinned mascara on Pinterest.
If all mascaras give you length and volume to whatever degree, they don't really have a unique identity otherwise. They have to find their own way to stand out from the other tubes. I know that "sex sells" is pretty much a cornerstone of advertising (and a lot of things in life), but for the life of me, I can't remember the last time my lashes have gotten me laid. Clearly, Big Mascara has more insight into the desires of the mascara-purchasing populace, and it would appear that that's what it comes down to: desire. Positioning long, voluminous lashes as boosting one's sex appeal makes a pretty unbeatable argument, even if it's only appealing to one's subconscious.
How long until eyelashes will become representative of something other
than their potential for inspiring thirst?
Blush, lipstick, eye shadow, and highlighter all have the edge of offering things like color, finish, and opacity to appeal to your chosen mode of self-expression on any given day, for any given mood. Mascara, however, only really has one discernable function, so it really needs to sell you on something other than its encased black (or brown) goop. I do wonder, though, how long until eyelashes will become representative of something other than their potential for inspiring thirst? Maybe long, fluttery, thirst-inspiring lashes just need a rebrand to expand their image portfolio. I'm currently in the market for the cool leather jacket of mascaras or the frequent flyer miles of lashes, so if any brands were thinking of heading in that direction with their next lash-enhancing launch, I'd be all about it.
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