Building a Mascara Wardrobe for the Lashes

Makeup artist Alice Lane is talking mascara. “Right now, I’m obsessed with Tom Ford’s Extreme formula. It’s got this big fat wand and it’s really, really black. It’s gorgeous. Fantastic. That’s what I use at night,” she says, before firing off a list of versatile, high-tech favorites—including M.A.C.’s Haute & Naughty (“amazing for bottom lashes”) and Topshop’s classic mascara (“a great chocolate brown for day”)—that she carries around in her kit.

Lane may be a professional, but the idea of creating a versatile mascara wardrobe—one supernatural lash stain for the weekend, another lengthening and separating formula for the office, a fattening and thickening alternative for parties, a waterproof tint for the gym—has made its way to the mainstream in recent years.

With beauty companies turning out better, smarter, longer-lasting pigments for fall—Clinique’s Bottom Lashes formula contains smudge-proof, thermally activated polymers that dissolve only in the presence of hot water, while Dior’s New Look is loaded with shiny, patented 3-D black-glass pigments—the possibilities can seem overwhelming. Here, Vogue sorts through the season’s best new and existing formulas in the service of rounding out your collection.