Mascara. Gotta love it, because it’s one of those products that instantly makes you look (and feel) more put together.

But as someone who will get an eye infection at the drop of a hat, I have to be very very very careful about what I put on my eyes. Fiber mascara is out, as is most volumizing mascara. I’ve even had trouble with eye creams and cream eyeshadows.

Through a trial-and-error process, I’ve figured out that any starch- or grain-related ingredient is highly problematic. That stuff feeds the bacteria on your skin.

So Clinque – a mascara that specifically brands itself as gentle – is out. Funny, that.

Fortunately, Benefit Cosmetics exists. Specifically Bad Gal, Bad Gal Bang, and Roller Lash.

Benefit’s mascaras are all formulated without rice or wheat products, and I have yet to have an issue with any of them. There’s also the bonus that Benefit sells most of its mascaras in travel size, which I prefer over normal size. This means that my mascara runs out or dries up before it has a chance to get contaminated from bacteria.

Roller Lash

This mascara is no joke. It will seriously curl your lashes. It is blacker than tarnation. You look like you’re wearing MASCARA. It’s really easy to build up a spidery/clumpy look, if you’re into that. And I really like the wand – a curved, rubberized jobber that’s really handy for sculpting your magically curled lashes.

This is the mascara that I’ll wear for special occasions, because in addition to all of the above, it’s 100% budge-proof. You can’t cry it off, sweat it off, or rub it off. It will not transfer when you’re applying it, or when you’re doing anything else.

Of course, that is also its biggest drawback: removal. You need some serious heavy-duty eye makeup remover for this one, plus a little elbow grease. To be honest, that’s why I stopped using it on a daily basis, because I was worried that I’d irritate my eyes trying to remove it!

That said, I still keep a tube around for nights out or occasions when I know I’ll shed a tear or two.

Bad Gal Lash

I picked up this mascara on recommendation from one of the girls at Ulta, and I’m still not totally sure how I feel about it. Bad Gal is the complete opposite of Roller Lash.

It will not curl your lashes, or even hold a curl if you use a lash curler beforehand. Sometimes it is difficult to tell if your lashes are blacker or not after you apply it. The wand is thick like a caterpillar, almost like you’re paint-rolling on the mascara instead of coating each individual lash. And it gets everywhere. I have to wipe up my eyelid area after applying (good thing I don’t wear eyeshadow) and by the end of the day there’s about an 85% chance that I have mascara smeared all over my eyelid. It’s not pretty.

On the plus side, it washes off easily with cleanser and water. (I use Glossier Milky Jelly cleanser which is gentle enough that I can use it on my eyes.)

I was using this one everyday for a couple months, and while it was fine – and certainly met my needs for washing off completely – I never really felt like I was wearing mascara. Coupled with the fact that I was wearing mascara to the tune of panda eyes by 5pm, that’s like a worst of both worlds situation.

If only there was a mascara that hit a happy medium in between the stubborn statement of Roller Lash and the subtle non-commitment of Bad Gal….

Bad Gal Bang

Enter Bad Gal Bang. It is, I’m happy to report, a happy medium between Roller and Bad Gal. The perfect mascara, perhaps? (No, not really.)

Bad Gal Bang really is like a hyped up version of Bad Gal, or like a toned down version of Roller Lash. The brush is rubberized, making it easy to coat each lash, although this one is very flexible and tapered. It definitely looks like you’re wearing mascara, and you can go pretty subtle with it, or build it up for some serious spider lashes. And at the end of the day, it washes off with cleanser (mostly). The rest wipes up really easily with a q-tip.

Now the downsides. Like Bad Gal, it tends to get messy when you apply it. This can be mitigated if you blot the brush on a tissue before putting it on your eye, but I still have to clean up after myself. However, that’s just a little problem. The big problem: it flakes.

I’m not sure if flakes are better than smears – although they certainly are easier to brush away – especially when they don’t wait for the end of the day and instead start at 10am.

Regardless, this is still my favorite mascara at the moment. It does everything I want it to do, has a brush that I enjoy using, and doesn’t irritate my eyes.

 

If your eyes get easily irritated and/or you’ve ever had to throw away all of your eye makeup because of an eye infection, here are my best tips:

  • Avoid mascaras with wheat, rice, starch, or bran ingredients (these are often added to help volumize) (same goes for eye creams and eyeshadow)
  • Also avoid fiber mascaras (use false lashes if you want to boost things)
  • Buy travel sized, so it’s less money wasted if the mascara ends up freaking your eyes out, and it’ll keep you honest about swapping out your mascara quickly
  • Always always always remove your mascara before you sleep at night (no residue!)