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The first time I ever tried mascara was an unmitigated disaster. I was 13, and gleefully piled on a few coats of one particularly popular drugstore mascara before school. By the time I sat down in first period, my lash line was itchy, red, and irritated. It was clear that the sensitive skin around my eyes wasn't going to tolerate just any formula — I needed something a little gentler.
Since then, I've been searching for the perfect natural mascara: A formula that gave me the long, dark lashes I yearned for, but didn't irritate my sensitive skin. I've found a handful of OK options over the years, but never one I could get excited about.
Enter RMS Beauty Defining Mascara ($28). This non-toxic formula is consistently ranked among the top natural mascaras, so my hopes were high. The morning I set out to test it, I woke up with puffy eyelids and dark circles after a truly terrible night of sleep. Still, this mascara managed to give me that wide-awake, long-lashed look I was hoping for — just see for yourself.