At the beginning of May, I was at the ridiculously gorgeous Happily Ever Essence Event at Casa Loma to launch essence‘s Spring/Summer 2015 lineup. We were gifted a generous bag of goodies from that lineup and one of the most intriguing items was the Lash Princess mascara.

It’s hard to resist when something is new and different! And at this stage in the game, it’s fairly hard to get creative with mascaras while still being functional. Lash Princess‘ tube is designed to look like a princess’ dress. The corseting down the back is ridiculously adorable, but it’s actually functional! The whole “dress” is upraised and grippy, which makes it easier to hold the wand while applying it to your lashes. It’s a simple little touch, but a neat one.

The wand is also interesting. The press release describes it as being “cobra-shaped”, and I see it, but I wouldn’t have thought of that unless they’d told me! On first impression, it was just… weird. Interesting, but weird. While the wand may seem oddly shaped, it did hug the curves of my lashes unbelievably well.

Here’s how it looks on my lashes:

Impressive right??! Lash Princess mascara retails for around $4-5 and it totally, and completely, does the job. It built up my lashes, extended them and thickened them. I experience very, VERY minimal flaking throughout an entire day which is excellent since I am very much prone to mascara flakeage.

I’m usually a one coat mascara type woman, but the shot above is with two coats to illustrate what it would look like since the average person does apply two coats of mascara. This is the point where I start to feel it’s more thick than defined, but it’s certainly not causing massive chunks of lashes to stick together which is highly appreciated. (You know… the “I’ve got four whole eyelashes” look?)

And here it is on a fully done up eye. I have blonde lashes, so this is mighty impressive that I even managed to get the roots so dark.

Final Verdict

Lash Princess mascara by essence is a total win. For a four dollar drugstore mascara, you cannot go wrong with this one. It gave me great volume and darkness to my otherwise blonde and rather transparent lashes. Flaking was minimal and the formula holds up throughout the entire day (I’ve worn this over 16 hours without issue). It’s also more of a wet formula, which is also to my liking.

The only slight downside for me is that it’s not a completely soft texture once it’s applied to your lashes – it *will* feel a bit crunchy, but that’s really only if you’re in the habit of touching your eyelashes throughout the day! Aside from that though, this is absolutely worth the pocket change it’ll cost you to pick it up!

The product featured in this review was provided by PR for consideration.