Almay One Coat Mega Volume Mascara Review

Woohoo, another sample to try from Crowdtap arrived! This time its a new mascara, the Almay One Coat Mega Volume one to be exact.

I don't think I've ever tried Almay mascara before so I was excited to give it a shot. Drugstore mascaras have really been stepping their game up lately, as evidenced by the wildly popular L'Oreal Lash Paradise, so its always fun to try out a new one!

Are you as curious about that brush as I was?

Sorry its a little blurry! I thought it was fine and threw away the packaging

The uniquely shaped brush really had me wondering what it would be like. With a brush like this it could either be really difficult or really easy to apply.

Its like a spiral

Here's the fancy new brush! Its actually pretty huge, way bigger than I expected, so I was a little lost for words at first. I had no idea if it would even fit my lids, let alone adequately coat my frustratingly pale lashes. At first I was pleasantly surprised. I really liked the way it was combing and covering my lashes. Coverage was about average for me until I turned the wand straight up and used the flat top to easily reach my inner and outer lashes. I always struggle to get them when applying mascara and its incredibly obvious given their orange color.

No mascara, one coat top lashes only, one coat top and bottom

Unfortunately it started to go downhill as soon as I finished. Because the formula is so wet and liquidy the mascara immediately transferred to my lower lashes in an uneven way. I'm used to having to clean up a little mascara from my lower lashes but this was pretty extreme. (It was a lot worse in person than the photo makes it seem.) Although I don't usually I don't wear mascara on both sets of lashes I figured that I might as well try it out. The gigantic brush combined with the very wet formula made it super messy and frustrating to apply. It started to flake off of those lower lashes almost immediately.

No mascara, one coat top lashes only

The other eye went a little better but overall it was the same basic experience. I have a couple unruly lashes on this eye that the One Coat Mega Volume mascara really emphasized. Even after trying to fix their positioning a bit my lashes looked a lot more unruly to me than they do with other mascaras. This is something no one else in the world will ever notice so really not a big a deal but it still annoyed me a little.

Three coats top lashes, one coat bottom lashes

After spending even more time cleaning up I decided to take some photos for Crowdtap of me applying the mascara. This left one of my eyes with a very thick three coats of mascara. This made my lashes look even more unruly and quite spidery. I don't enjoy this sort of look on myself but I know that some people really like thick, bold mascara like this.

45 minutes later I went outside to take the other photos for my review. If you look close you can see that there are already tons of tiny flakes all over my face.

Flake city!

At the end of the day, about 8 hours from application, my face was covered in mascara flakes and I had a few smudges beneath my lower lashes. It was difficult to photograph but you can see some of the flakes here. Almay One Coat Mega Volume Mascara was easy to remove with warm water and a Makeup Eraser. The mascara flaked off, getting more flakes on my face and even in my eyes. The larger flakes were very irritating and it was a little alarming how many tiny flakes I found in my eyes by moving my upper and lower eyelids.

One coat on upper lashes

The next day I decided to give it another shot and see what happened with just one coat on my upper lashes. Even with a much shorter wear time (about 5 hours) the results were the same. Actually it was even worse because the mascara clumped a bunch of my lashes together on both eyes. Even with a lash comb I couldn't get them separated and just smeared mascara all over my face trying. If I'd been wearing more than eyeliner it would've ruined my makeup so it was very frustrating.

I really do love that weird brush but for me this formula just isn't worth it. I don't like wet mascara and there's no reason to have to put up with so much flaking. The curl, volume, and lengthening just isn't worth it either. The giant irritating flakes that got in my eyes worried me so I don't think I'll be using it again, although I'll probably clean the brush to try with other formulas.

All of that aside, mascara, like all makeup, is a very personal thing and just because it flaked badly on me doesn't mean it'll flake on you! If you're a fan of wet mascaras and think this could work for you, you can find more information about Almay One Coat Mega Volume Mascara on Ulta here.

I received these products complimentary from Crowdtap for testing purposes. All opinions and reviews are my own.