Marc Jacobs Beauty Velvet Noir Major Volume Mascara – A Review

Receiving make-up as blogger mail is one of the most exciting parts of beauty blogging! A couple of days ago I received the new Marc Jacobs Velvet Noir Mascara to try and test out. This came as a total surprise to me (I hadn’t checked my emails in about a week) so I was pulling apart the packaging trying to discover what had come through the door.

On first impressions, I liked the design of this mascara. The tube is professional looking, is pentagon-shaped and well-weighted so it’s certainly ergonomically pleasing to hold and use. The brush itself is an hourglass shape which allows all lashes to be coated effectively and evenly to give that false-lash effect.

Now, onto the actual formula and how effective it really is. Marc Jacobs promises that this product “creates instant, smudge-free length and volume in three strokes or less to experience 1800% more volume and the look of false lashes”. Due to the intense pigmentation of the mascara, it is extremely visually striking. I love black mascaras as they’re always the most flattering, but this really suppresses high street brands and it’s easily the blackest mascara I’ve come across. Aside from this, it’s also super easy to apply as the formula is quite moist and light-weight, and despite other reviews, I personally found that this dried almost instantly.

I found that the wear of this product exceeded my expectations massively. I’ve never been one for splurging out on mascaras, the maximum I’d normally spend is around £12, so with this one coming in at £22, it’s significantly more expensive. I’ve worn this mascara on a couple of occasions now, both throughout the day and on a night-time, and am yet to see any problems with it! I’ve seen previous reviews suggesting that after a few hours you may be plagued with raccoon eyes, however I have not experienced this yet so unless you’re susceptible to watery eyes or playing with your eyelashes, I wouldn’t worry too much! Naturally I’d say my lashes were fairly average. They lack volume and I wish they were more curled, but they could be worse. I found this mascara to work extremely well with my natural lashes and you can really see how it grabs each individual lash. Obviously I’m not sure if they give my lashes 1800x more volume, but the volume and length improvements are apparent just from the first sweep! A little goes a long way with this mascara, and you can quite easily have quick brush-over in the morning with a couple of sweeps, or layer this up for a night-time look.

Before and after shot of mascara (please ignore the eyebrows). Around five sweeps on the top lash was used to create this look.

Despite the fact that this product was gifted to me, I would say it is probably the best mascara I’ve ever used. I’ve never considered purchasing high-end mascaras before now, but I will 100% be buying another one of these after this one runs out.