Bad mascara can ruin your day, clumping your eyelashes into a spidery mess, smudging into raccoon-like circles by 3 p.m., or flaking down your face.
And spending more doesn’t insulate you from buying a dud. With dozens of brands and hundreds of different formulas available, you can find both terrible and awesome mascaras from $6 to $60.
That’s where we come in. To find truly great mascara, we tested more than 30 options, sent 12 finalists to a diverse panel for brand-concealed testing, and ended up with five remarkable standouts, including an excellent everyday mascara, a sleek tubing option, an exceptional lengthening mascara you can get at the drugstore, a vampy dramatic formula, and a reliable waterproof choice.
We hope there’s one on our list that you love, too.