The one beauty product I can’t live without is mascara. But even I — who has tried just about every volumizing, lengthening, tubing, and waterproof formula out there — had to take a minute to wrap my head around the idea of a mascara-dry shampoo hybrid product. MAC Lash Dry Shampoo Mascara Refresher is supposed to bring volume back to hours-old mascara, the same way you’d use a dry shampoo to refresh your hair. But also, huh? I certainly wasn’t about to blast a dry shampoo into my eyes (don’t try that at home!). Turns out, though, MAC Lash Dry Shampoo Mascara Refresher isn’t a powdery spray at all.
At first glance, it resembles a typical black mascara. But when I started to use it, I quickly realized it has a somewhat oily formula that’s noticeably slicker than mascara, adding nonsticky volume with a black tint. So if you had used your usual mascara that morning, and your lashes started to dry out by the afternoon, this clever formula can revive them.
Instead of the usual fluffy mascara wand, this product has a small, flexible comb that helps detangle lashes, so your morning mascara won’t look clumpy under a fresh coat of Lash Dry Shampoo. You can expect lashes that become dry, flaky, and shorter by the afternoon to look refreshed again — long, shiny, glossy — almost like you first applied your makeup for the day.
After I got some clarification of the concept, it made a lot of sense: When you want to reapply your makeup midday, or before a night out, it’s easy to add a little extra concealer, a swipe of black eyeliner, some bronzer. Getting your lashes as fluttery as when you applied mascara eight hours before, however, is nearly impossible, unless you have a bottle of micellar water nearby to start fresh. Layering new mascara over clumpy mascara is a recipe for, well, more clumps.
It took more than two years for MAC to develop Lash Dry Shampoo because it was so different from creating a standard mascara. “We had to ensure that it performed the way we intended over mascara,” says Jamie Lynch, executive director of product development at MAC. “It was important to make sure that the formula combed through [easily], refreshed the mascara that was already on the lashes, and revived the look of the lash.”