Makeup products have a shelf life, but it can be extremely frustrating when your favourite mascara starts to dry out with half the liquid still in the tube.
Thankfully, you don’t need to throw it out – there are a few simple ways to restore it, and you’ve probably got all you need in your bathroom cabinet.
Eye drops
If you’ve got some eye drops handy, you’re in luck. Marie Claire beauty editor Lauren Valenti recently shared how you can use them to make your mascara like new again.
To banish the clumps and flakes, squeeze a few drops into the tube. Depending on how dry your mascara is, two to four drops should do the job, Valenti says.
Listen: Zoe Foster Blake shares her best beauty advice for the time-poor woman. (Post continues after audio.)
Clean and dry your mascara wand and use it to stir the product before screwing it tightly shut and giving the bottle a few shakes. The mascara should glide on as smoothly as it did the day you first bought it.
Valenti says eye drops work much better than water – particularly if the formula is waterproof.
Just be sure to use a fresh eye drop bottle or one that hasn’t had any contact with your eyes to avoid bacteria making its way inside the tube.
These are the Mamamia team’s favourite mascaras. (Post continues after gallery.)
Mascaras the Mamamia team is obsessed with.
Stop pumping
Melbourne-based hair and makeup artist Eve Gunson has a few pieces of advice if you want to prevent your mascara from drying out too quickly.
“Stop pumping your wand into the tube a hundred times each day. Every time you do this, you are pushing air down into the tube and drying out the mascara,” she writes on Mamamia.
