Here’s what happened when we put long-lasting makeup products through the ultimate makeup removal test
In a wonderful world of beauty products, you see a lot of promises. Once bitten, one learns to take claims with a grain of salt. Brands love to rave about their long-lasting makeup, but it’s often a promise that’s broken. Luckily, unlike pledges of good luck and eternal youth, it is one that can be somewhat tested. Here are some of what I consider my longest lasting makeups vs. the world. The choices I made for this “experiment” were not exactly scientific. In fact, they were based on a few things: either the product making actual promises about lasting power, or me having worn the product and thought, “hmm, that lasted surprisingly well.”
I did choose things from different makeup subcategories, though, so as to create a sort of “long-lasting face wardrobe.”
My products were, from left to right:
- The La Roche Posay Anthelios XL Anti-Shine Tinted Dry Touch Gel Cream, $15.20, which promises 11-15 hours of wear.
- The L’Oreal True Match Illuminator in Ice, $9.87 at Walmart, which I’ve noticed has great wear time even when I’m at sweaty clubs.
- Wunderbrow, $22 from their own website, a tinted eyebrow gel which promises “semi-permanent eyebrows.”
- The Milk Makeup Weekend Lash Stain, $22, which (as the name suggests), it claims to stain lashes for two whole days.
- Viseart Neutral Matte palette, $80. These don’t make claims as to wear time, but I wanted to see if the Most Expensive Eye Palette in the World™ had as high a performance level as I hoped it would.
And here was my test. First, I sprayed my swatches with water. As you can see, that was pretty much curtains for the L’Oreal. I was surprised — I’m sure I’ve pelted it with more facial sweat and spilled drinks before it bit the dust. But science is science (absolutely not at all), and this fell at the first hurdle. See?
Next, I took a bottle of micellar water and dribbled it liberally all over my arm. Amazingly, after being thoroughly soaked, everything seemed fine, except the actual pen I had on my hand.
These makeup products held up better than actual ink from a pen. Remarkable. (That note on my hand was a reminder to buy a shower cap, not a reminder to shower, just FYI.)
While still damp, I tried a bit of rubbing (stop it). The Viseart eyeshadows moved a bit, and the La Roche Posay faded a touch. They were still most definitely there, though.
Then, I patted my arm dry. The shadows and the tinted SPF left behind a stain, but not much else.
The rest was simply a battle to remove the Milk Lash Stain and the Wunderbrow. Here they are covered in baby oil.
Here they are after massaging in and removing the baby oil.
And here they are, on my poor irritated arm, after some scrubbing.
So there we have it. Sometimes products actually tell the truth. Sometimes, if products don’t claim to be long lasting, then they aren’t. Sometimes, if you spend $80 on a palette it will pleasantly surprise you. And sometimes you can paint your eyebrows and eyelashes and seriously expect it to last through everything. Your investigative reporter — over and out.