REVIEWSDAY: Divaderme Lash Extender

Brace yourselves: I’m quite into makeup.

I know; shocker, right? My family knows this, obviously, and come this Christmas time I was gently spoilt with all sorts of exciting beauty bits and bobs (haul post coming soon!), and one of them was this: the Divaderme Lash Extender.

Divaderme call it lashes in a bottle, and it’s made up of teensy tiny fibres that you brush onto fresh mascara and then seal in with another layer. It looked super exciting, and also sort of terrifying, and I absolutely couldn’t wait to run away from my family gathering and try it out.

The first thing I’m going to say is that if you’re a contact lens wearer, DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES apply this after you’ve put them in. The words fibres and contacts should never be anywhere near each other, in my opinion – I’d had glasses on when I tried this out, and if I’d been planning to wear contacts I would absolutely have made sure it all dried completely and washed the hell out of my hands before I even thought about putting them in.  

ALSO if you’ve got sensitive skin, as with any product, I absolutely recommend testing the fibres elsewhere on your skin before you put them anywhere near your eyes, just in case.

ALSO ALSO if you use this product, definitely do not go to sleep with it still on, because if it gets into your eyes while you’re asleep it could cause you nasty problems.

Scary warnings over – seriously, look at the little fibres and try not to have contact-related palpitations – I promise.

The instructions are to apply a layer of mascara, then brush the fibres onto your upper lashes, and then seal with another layer of mascara (or two). I normally like quite thick mascara in terms of formula, but for this I definitely recommend using a wetter formula for the first layer as it will help the fibres stick, and then a waterproof one over the top to seal everything down – again, especially if you wear contacts.

The application was a bit of a faff – it’s hard to make sure you get the fibres evenly distributed, although I’m sure that gets easier with practice. It’s also easier to scrape off excess fibres from the brush (stick? Wand? Who knows) beforehand, to stop them going everywhere. This is definitely something you should do before doing the rest of your makeup, as the little fibres got all over my eyes and nose and cheeks – in future, I will definitely dust a bunch of face powder all around my eyes so that they can be brushed off more easily.

There was a definite, immediate effect though – for me, it was much more of a boost in volume than length, as the fibres settled more easily towards the base of the lashes, but there’s a very clear and quite dramatic difference between the eye that has fibres on and the one that’s just got mascara, as you can see in the pictures. Removing it was also pretty easy – I was a bit scared of a horrifying clumpy disaster, but it’s no more difficult than a hardcore waterproof mascara.

If your lashes are sparse and you’re not a fan of false ones, or allergic to lash glue, I definitely recommend trying this product out. It’s not particularly simple to use, but I’m pretty sure it gets much easier with practice and there’s lots of little things you can do (like using face powder etc) to speed the process up. It definitely gives a dramatic boost with a more natural overall look than you get with false eyelashes, and once I’ve given it a few more goes to get the hang of it I’m pretty sure I’ll be using it again.

It’s available for all sorts of different prices from different places, so if you fancy giving it a try I definitely recommend shopping around a bit for the best price, and you should never have to pay more than a tenner – here it is for £9.42 from Amazon, and here for £7.20 from eBay.

But, seriously, be careful with your contacts. I’m not paranoid; I swear.