Efolar Fiber Mascara Review

Hi everyone!

So recently, my mum went to get her hair done at a local hairdresser. Which is also where she bought this fiber mascara from 'Efolar'. I personally never have heard of this brand, but I'm pretty sure its a brand founded in China or at least the products are made there. My mum was actually the first to try this fibre mascara, and when she ended up hating this product she let me try it. If you're unfamiliar with how to use a fibre mascara, step one would be to coat your lashes with the mascara and step two is to coat your mascara covered lashes with the fibres. This is the very first time I used a fibre mascara, and to be honest, this particular product probably doesn't do a fibre mascara justice.

Packaging wise, the box that it comes in is really sturdy. I actually really enjoy the packaging of this product, you can tell that the company had put a lot of thought and effort into it. The box has two flaps that would open up to show the tubes of mascara and fibres. The box also has a magnetic closure that would keep the flaps that keeps the tubes nice and secure inside. However, the mascara tubes themselves are a different story, to be honest, they feel a bit cheap. While the design on the tubes make it seem expensive, the tubes themselves feel so lightweight that it doesn't feel expensive. 

The stopper in the mascara tube does a pretty good job of cleaning off the mascara from the wand, however because the wand tapers off towards the end a huge chunk of mascara sticks to the end. 

Mascara wand with mascara cleaned off - Mascara wand straight out of the tube - Fibre wand 

The first few times I used this fibre mascara, I found that the stopper did such a good job of cleaning off excess mascara that there was barely any mascara on the base of the wand. It also doesn't help that the formula of the mascara is incredibly dry. Basically none of the mascara transferred onto my lashes, so none of the fibres were able to properly lengthen them. But alas, I figured out a way to have the mascara coat my lashes. I scraped off the tip of the wand onto the opening of the tube, and wiggled the wand's base into it. I know you can layer on the mascara and fibres but the formula is so dry that when I went to do another layer, the fibres ended up flaking off.  

Here are my lashes before using it....

And here they are after using it. 

Lengthwise, this didn't do anything for me. It basically darkened my lashes so that they would be more prominent, but it gave the same result as the Maybelline Colossal Cat Eyes Mascara. I prefer more fanned out and natural lashes, and this clumped a lot and it also glued some of my lashes together making them look more spidery.

So to sum things up:

PROS. 
- Its fairly easy to remove
- Packaging makes it look like a luxury item, but the price that my mum had to pay basically makes it a luxury mascara anyway!

CONS. 
- Ridiculous amount of fall out when you blink
- Impossible to layer the mascara and further lengthen because the fibres end up getting scraped off.
- Extremely messy
- Not a natural mascara
- Flaky
- Mascara formula is too dry

OVERALL RATING OUT OF 5: 
J

Stila - Written In The Stars

This is a review on the limited edition Stila 'Written in the Stars' palette. The packaging is really cute and the white and silver snowflakes that are printed on the box fits with the holiday season, which was when this palette was released. I bought this palette when it was on sale on beauty bay for... wait for it... $12 AU! However now, it is back to the standard price, which is $25 AU + free shipping. Which isn't too bad, considering how crazy expensive the makeup prices are in Australia. 

What the brand says about this product: 

"The buttery-soft textures glide smoothly onto eye lids, allowing you to effortlessly create a multitude of looks whilst the ultra-wearable shades look fabulous on everyone and can be used wet or dry for various intensities." 

Here are some close up photos on what the palette looks like, as well as some swatches. 

 From left to right. Sun, Luna, Eden, Starlight. 

 From left to right. Constellation, Asteroid, Galaxy, Ray. 

From left to right. Pigalle, Bouquet, Heaven, Ariel.

1. Starlight 2. Eden 3. Luna 4. Sun 5. Ray 6. Galaxy 7. Asteroid 8. Constellation 9. Pigalle 10. Bouquet 11. Heaven 12. Ariel - All swatched on paper

Swatched on my arm 

 As you can see, the lighter colours barely showed up on my complexion. However the darker colours showed up fairly well considering that I didn't heavily swatch them. On my fingers you could see the lighter colours better, but that was just because I was rubbing or digging them into the product. 

PROS. 
- Packaging 
- Great pigmentation on the darker colours
- Palette versatility, enables many different looks for day and night 
- Easy to blend 
- Shadows can be layered to intensify the pigmentation   

CONS. 
- The size of the eyeshadow pans 
- The pigmentation of the lighter colours could have been better 
- Some of the shadows felt a bit dry and chalky 

OVERALL RATING OUT OF 5: 
JJJ

This is my very first Stila product and I'm kind of on the fence about it. I've had heard so many great things about the palettes that Stila has released, such as the 'In the night palette' which is constantly being raved about. So I had expected many great things from this palette, but it kind of was a disappointment. The lighter colours didn't seem as pigmented as the darker ones, which could be a good thing if you wanted to go for a more natural look. As well as that you could always layer and build the colour on your eyelids and with a good base it would intensify the colours even further. The brand claims that you could use these shadows wet or dry, so I would most likely be posting another post with pictures comparing the two.