I think I’ve done quite a lot of premium beauty recently but I picked up the Essence Double Trouble Mascara last week for £3.50-ish in one of my local stores so I’ve been putting that through its paces.

If you like your lashes really dark, this formula is ‘extra’ black so you will have a nicely sooty lash fringe from it. It’s also pretty good for not over-coating – new mascaras can often over deliver leaving you with a bit of a smudgy, start-all-over-again problem unless you remember to do a bit of a wipe off first. This doesn’t do that – which is good in one sense because you can do a comfortable layer build – in the other sense, perhaps it’s not quite wet enough?

By the end of the day I did have some flaking but nothing much to complain about – in fact, I’d be quite happy to use this at the price on a day to day basis. The brush is a double sided complication – bristles are fluffy one side and short and spiky on the other depending upon which look – volumized or defined – you’d prefer. I like a skinny brush but it felt a bit unwieldy working out the sides so I didn’t bother. A good value mascara that I don’t really have any complaints about – it’s not Dior but it does the job. You can find it HERE for £3.79 and there is a waterproof version too.