Benefit UPDATE: The Benefit Advent Calendar 2023 is now on sale and it contains all of the best benefit mascaras featured in this guide.
You can see the full list of what’s inside the 2023 Benefit calendar here, but in terms of mascara it includes:
The 24-day calendar itself costs £145 but is worth £281. Buy now, or keep reading to discover which is the best Benefit mascara we’ve tested.
We’ve also ordered the Benefit calendar and will be posting our full Benefit Advent Calendar 2023 unboxing as soon as it arrives.
Buy now
During our month-long, Benefit mascara tests, there was a very clear winner and that was Roller Lash.
Benefit’s Roller Lash mascara is quite frankly our new, lifelong commitment. The curling effect combined with the volume and definition it gave just couldn’t be beaten. Not just by any of the other mascaras in this list, but by any mascaras we’ve ever used.
Coming in very close to Roller Lash is the brand-new Fan Fest. Buildable colour, long-lasting, and great lift. It just missed out on the top spot for not giving quite as much volume and length.
BADgal Bang was also a close contender, especially suited to those who like a full-on look with lots of volume or the braver among us who like the idea of the bright blue option.
They’re Real! is a great option for a more subtle daytime look, especially in the brown.
However, the original BADgal Lash left a little to be desired and sadly wasn’t for us. The chunky bristle wand was tricky to work with and perhaps we’ve been spoilt in recent years with plastic wands that offer greater control and fewer clumps.
| 1. Roller Lash | £22.50 |
| 2. Fan Fest | £25.50 |
| 3. BADgal Bang | £22.50 |
| 4. They're Real! | £22.50 |
| 5. They're Real! Primer mascara | £22 |
| 6. BADgal Lash | £22.50 |
Benefit sells a range of mascaras promising different things. To determine which is the best Benefit mascara, once and for all, we’ve reviewed and ranked each one
Benefit UPDATE: The Benefit Advent Calendar 2023 is now on sale and it contains all of the best benefit mascaras featured in this guide.
You can see the full list of what’s inside the 2023 Benefit calendar here, but in terms of mascara it includes:
The 24-day calendar itself costs £145 but is worth £281. Buy now, or keep reading to discover which is the best Benefit mascara we’ve tested.
We’ve also ordered the Benefit calendar and will be posting our full Benefit Advent Calendar 2023 unboxing as soon as it arrives.
Buy now
Original best Benefit mascara ranking continues below
As self-proclaimed make-up addicts, Benefit is a brand we’ve held in high regard for many years and its range of Benefit mascara is often rated highly by experts and influencers alike.
However, with several varieties on offer, all claiming to add more volume, length, definition and general flutter than the last, how is one supposed to narrow it down? That’s where we come in!
We’ve spent the past month putting Benefit mascaras to the test – in various colours – to bring you a definitive guide on how they perform and which is the best Benefit mascara around. The ranking is missing the Benefit They’re Real! Magnet mascara as there was a problem with our sample but we’ll be adding this to the mix ASAP.
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Each one of these Benefit mascaras was bought using our own money – none were gifted and Benefit didn’t have any input in this list. These are real-world results, used on natural lashes.
Price: £20 | Buy now
mamabella rating: 2/5
BADgal Lash is an OG when it comes to Benefit mascara. The packaging is probably the most simplistic of the bunch, but the bright pink and black branding is synonymous with the BADgal range and if it’s not broke don’t fix it, right?
Personally, we found this mascara the trickiest to apply out of all of the Benefit mascaras we tried. The brush is a traditional bristle mascara wand but it’s very much on the large side. It was tricky to use without getting unwanted smudges, and it was hard (and often messy) trying to get down to the root.
In our real-world tests, we found this Benefit mascara needed a few layers to really get the dramatic effect we like, although it does build and layer well. On the plus side, it was easy to remove, something that can be a deal-breaker when you just want to fall into bed at night, and reduce damage to your lashes and sensitive skin around your eyes.
READ NEXT: What is mascara made of?
Price: £22 | Buy now
mamabella rating: 3/5
Laura Adderley The premise of Benefit’s They’re Real! Primer mascara is that (as its name suggests) it can serve as either a primer underneath a regular mascara for added oomph, or it can be worn alone as a subtle mascara.
We weren’t expecting it to be enough by itself, especially given our penchant for high-impact dramatic lashes but we were surprisingly impressed with it for offering a natural daytime look.
It layers well with any of the other mascaras and the brown shade looked flattered our blue eyes. It washed off super easily and the plastic wand made it easy to work with little risk of clumping.
Price: £22.50 | Buy now
mamabella rating: 3/5
The standard They’re Real! Benefit mascara comes in both brown and black so gave us options for a more natural daytime look as well as a darker evening look.
The packaging is the most grown-up of the lot, with a metallic curvy appearance. The wand is plastic and achieves good length and separation.
This Benefit mascara was easy to layer but did lack some of the volume of Roller Lash and BADgal Bang. Possibly best suited to those who like a more subtle look whilst still having a good amount of length and definition, both colours of the They’re Real! mascara lasted all day and were easy to remove.
Price: £22.50 | Buy now
mamabella rating: 4/5
BADgal Lash’s edgier, grungier younger sister, this Benefit mascara really packs a punch. We tried both the black and the blue (frankly a terrifying prospect if you’re old enough to remember the last time neon blue mascara was de rigueur!) and unlike its older sibling, this mascara has a plastic wand and is narrow enough to get all the way down to the roots.
It provided unrivalled volume whilst also adding length and we found one coat was enough, but it was still possible to add a second coat.
More than two coats went a little clumpy as the wand does deliver a lot of product, but no matter how many layers we applied, this mascara lasted until bedtime. The downside to this staying power is that it was trickier to remove than the others in our best Benefit mascara list, and it required a few rounds with eye makeup remover, making it more likely to be a mascara saved for nights out.
The funky packaging is more modern whilst still featuring the unmissable bright pink logo. The blue was good fun, but probably something we would leave for summer festivals.
More recently, Benefit launched a waterproof version of its BADgal Bang! mascara. It holds the curl better than the original, but because it dries faster it’s not as easy to add multiple coats. Certainly not without leaving clumps. You can buy the original via the button below, or buy the waterproof version here.
Buy now from Sephora
Price: £25.50 | Buy now
mamabella rating: 5/5
Laura Adderley | mamabella We didn’t think that another Benefit mascara, or any mascara for that matter, could rival the Roller Lash and while it fell slightly short, the new Benefit Fan Fest very nearly managed it.
Designed to fan out lashes, add volume, and “multiply the look of lashes”, this new mascara uses what Benefit calls its Full-Flex Fiber Brush. This brush has a 40-degree curve engineered to lift the roots and cover all lashes. Even those in the corners.
The formula is then buildable and promises not to clump or flake.
What’s more, this mascara can help improve your natural lashes thanks to the addition of provitamin B5, cranberry extract, and rice wax which nourishes and helps define and separate the lashes.
We bought it in black and it creates a great, buildable colour (as promised) and this meant we could go from day to evening glam simply by adding more coats. All without worrying about it flaking or becoming clumpy.
It then didn’t budge all day, even day drinking from 2-10pm and the lift is great. The only reason it just lost out to Roller Lash was because it created less length and volume.
So much so, if we could give a joint winner then we would have done!
Buy Fan Fest now
Price: £22.50 | Buy now
mamabella rating: 5/5
Where do we even start? We LOVE Benefit’s Roller Lash mascara and it was a clear winner from the very first use. Perfect coverage, curls that out-delivered even our best eyelash curler efforts, length, definition, long-lasting colour…we could go on about this Benefit mascara for weeks.
Having tried everything from lash extensions to lash lifts, falsies and curlers, plus well over 100 mascaras in our time, this is hands-down the best mascara we’ve used. Not just the best Benefit mascara, but the best mascara. Period.
It features a plastic curved wand that was super easy to get right down to the roots. It really only needs one coat but it still layered well for high-drama, evening looks.
Our Lashes felt flexible and the mascara didn’t smudge, at all. The beautiful baby pink and black retro packaging made it look wonderful on our dressing table. Come bedtime it was super easy to wash off. Roller Lash where have you been all our life?
If you can’t stretch to £22.50, we have found a cheaper alternative to this fantastic Benefit mascara in the form of the L’Oreal Mega Volume Baby Roll mascara which features in our best drugstore mascara list.
Buy now from Sephora
Laura lives in Oxfordshire with her husband, two young sons and two cats. She is a project manager by day and has a passion for strong coffee, handbags, make-up, and a good crime drama
