Beauty Question: Do You Ever Go Mascara-Free?

Lately, I do. For years, my face felt blank without lashings of the stuff making my eyes look like they were fringed by spidery hairs. Advertisements for mascara are everywhere, each year featuring a model or actresses with false lashes that are longer and more ridiculous. Women stampeded to get their hands on the bevvy of new lash-growing serums like Latisse and Rapid Lash, regardless of the listed side effects. Semi-permanent lashes have become common place and girls walk down the street at 8 am with full sets of falsies applied for a simple trip to the office. We all seem obsessed with a longer, darker, fuller and, apparently, sexier set of lashes with every day that passes. It now often borders on surreal, with regular girls sporting the same eye makeup worn by drag queens for their stage shows.

But, as was evidenced on the runways for A/W 2010 and beyond, fashion — the industry that issues the diktat on what we will/will not be wearing on our bodies and faces — has decided that less is more as far as eye makeup is concerned. They are bucking the mainstream trend for full-on, exaggerated lashes. Models wore little to nothing on their eyes at tons of shows. Many with just a swipe of nude eyeshadow or gloss. Lips were bright instead, taking the focus off of the ocular fringe for the first time, in, well, decades. And even those who did wear mascara for the S/S ‘10 shows these past two weeks, had just a fleck of it on their upper lashes and nothing more.

Since IÂ’ve stopped wearing mascara so religiously, several people have commented that I look much younger. IÂ’m not one to believe thatÂ’s always a good thing, but for those out there who think that piling on the slap takes off the years, perhaps try the opposite approach and see just how strangely fresh-faced a lack of mascara can make you look.

There are other added benefits as well — not taking it off at night (and then again in the morning because itÂ’s impossible to get off all in one go), no eye irritation or messy black flecks under your eyes at the end of the day.

Plus, mascara is not known to be made with the most benevolent mix of ingredients, as a favorite insider of mine Beauty and the B**lsh*t points out.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/haleynealphotography/2198304495/