Product Endorsements (for which I will not be compensated)

Why should you have to spend your hard-earned cash to try products out when I can do it for you?! I admit it: I try things! Call it my spirit of adventure... or my pursuit of perfection. If I try something and it turns out to be extraordinary, I'll let you know...I promise! And I will even let you know if I feel you need a warning if I find that a product is The Suck.

Mascara
Right now, there are about six mascaras on the drug store market actively claiming to make those of us with wimpy eyelashes appear to have long, dark, glamorous, outrageously full, long, curled lashes. (Apparently it makes our legs longer, our lips fuller, our hair glossier and our *sses smaller, too, because these mascara models look amazing!)

The first thing I can tell you from experience is that the only way to make your short, blonde, sparse eyelashes look like those on the mascara models is to carefully apply false eyelashes, and then (even more carefully) apply the advertised mascara over top of them. You will have some seriously fabulous eyelashes if you do this. (Do I do that? Yes, sometimes. Love it. But not really work appropriate.)

However, the second thing I'll tell you is that after trying just about every mascara on the drugstore market, I really like Maybelline's Colossal Volum' Express mascara and it makes me look as though I have lovely, thick, long, black eyelashes. I like Glam Black. It's blacker than whatever the other black they offer is called, and why bother with the smoky or brown? Black helps define your eyes and makes them stand out.

A couple other points on this awesome stuff -

• I wear contact lenses and this mascara doesn't seem to bother my eyes.
• It's reasonably priced ( About $8) and there have been coupons in the Sunday papers the last few weeks.
• It washes off well with warm water and soap/your favorite cleansing product (unless you wash your face with mascara, and then, well, I don't know/can't help you at all besides to recommend that you stop it.)

I also gave Maybelline's newest mascara a whirl - Lash Stiletto - and I like the Colossal way better. I think if you have decent lashes already, Stiletto would be fine. Stiletto isn't a big volume builder. It's more like black, heavy hold gel for your lashes. It will define them, slick them and curve them up a little, but it's like a push up bra - you gotta have something to put in the cups, or all the pushin' up in the world won't help you.

I have another product to review for you (yogurt!) but I'm going to save that for another day. (I know you can "hardly wait," but the sarcasm really isn't necessary...)