Dolly eyes, or “big eyes” are extremely popular among Asian girls and women. In Asian culture, large eyes are one of the main features that constitute the ultimate beauty ideal, that furthermore exists of a.o. porcelain white skin, a small face and lustrous black hair. Large eyes are thought to be more feminine and innocent, and align with some of the expected qualities of women in past times – submissive, obedient, naïve and feminine.
Although large eyes have been regarded as the beauty ideal for centuries in Asia, pop culture from Korea and Japan largely influenced the popularity of dolly, cartoonish “anime” eyes over the past few years all across the region, especially in cosmetics. Eyelid surgery, or “blepharoplasty”, is a very common procedure to make the eyes appear larger by creating 双眼皮 (shuāng yǎn pí) or "double eyelids”, as -for example- around 50% of the population from Chinese descent is born with monolids.
Gladly, apart from cosmetic surgery, there is an overwhelming array of beauty products available that enlarge the eyes without having to resort to drastic measures such as going under the knife. Within this category however, there’s a large scale of ‘drasticness’. In drugstores you’ll find aisles full of eye makeup and tools, ranging from mascara’s that screamingly promise doll-like eyes, to more extreme products like eyelid stickers and tape to glue eyelids together and make monolids look like double eyelids. There are also several tools available aid in flipping and glueing your eyelids. Paradoxally, these in my eyes torture devices, are just as cute as everything else in the aisle, and can even be found clad with Hello Kitty and My Melody figures.
Eyelid Glue, Stickers and Tape
Glue, Stickers and Tools in action
Must See Video's to understand the Principles
Check out this video - turn off the volume because (in my humble opinion) the music is totally depressing - and be patient because it's quite a long video, however it is greatly interesting to see how one-sided tape, double-sided tape and glue work to create a double eyelid.
My jaw literally dropped with this video that shows how to use glue with help of The Torturous Tool (in Japanese but the images alone tell enough....). Quite a technique!
Western Eyes go Dolly Eyes
Initially, I vigorously avoided the Asian eye makeup aisles in drugstores. As the products and brands were so unfamiliar, they felt intimidating to me, and made me feel like I landed on another planet. The amount of mascara’s, eyeliners and eyelid glues that is bombarded at you in these aisles, is overwhelming. Even more so because the packaging of the products is mostly screaming pink, clad with doll-like figures, and product descriptions are mainly in Chinese, Korean or Japanese – not something that appeals to a big eyed Western lady.
But intrigued by the beauty ideal and curious to the intergalactic looking products, I started to check out these aisles, step-by-step, each time browsing a bit longer before fleeing back to the aisles with ‘safe’ Western products. Each visit I would be more at ease, and would care less and less about staring teenage girls and store personnel, who looked clearly puzzled on why on earth a Caucasian lady would show interest in double eyelid glue.
I’m blessed with a set of big eyes, and love to emphasize this feature in my makeup. As I can’t live without a good mascara, I’m always on the hunt to even better ones. And if the Asian mascara’s can create big, dolly, puppy eyes for monolid eyes, I can’t help but to be incredibly curious what they will do for my lashes.
TESTED: Kiss Me Heroine “Impact Frame Mascara”
Packaging
The product itself is packed as you’d expect from a typical “Dolly Eye” mascara; pink, glitzy gold, an anime cartoon girl with lashes to kill for, flashy text amongst which the only English word is “SUPER”, and a lot of Japanese characters that I don’t understand.
Promise
On the back, some explanation is written in English, and I especially love the tagline (when reading it in store, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud):
“Never be defeated by short lashes”
This mascara promises to “lift my lashes to new heights” and give them dramatic volume and length through ‘Triple Wax’;
“Triple wax allows the mascara liquid to spread smoothly to the ends, which both volumizes and lengthens your eyelashes. Extension Wax creates length while Hyper Volume Waxvolumises up to 180% and finally, both are blended seamlessly together with Joint Wax for flawlessly long and voluminous lashes.”
Moreover, the mascara is said to have a unique brush that creates beautiful lashes with no clumps; to give a long lasting curl effect; and to offer high resistance to tears, perspiration, water and sebum for comfortable and long-lasting lashes.
Given the hot and humid environment in Singapore, I’m especially fond of this last promise! I’ve read reviews from other bloggers saying that the mascara is indeed incredibly heat- and humidity-proof (and even survives sweaty workouts), but that the downside of this feature is that the mascara supposedly is difficult to remove from the lashes. Let’s find out.
How to use
This is a thing; apparently, you can’t simply slather the mascara onto your lashes. To be honest I never just ‘slather’ mascara onto my lashes unless I’m in a serious hurry, but I do know loads and loads of ladies who do randomly apply mascara without any technique – which is fine, if this works for you.
My own technique isn’t that special, yet I do stick to it: I start with a first layer on my top lashes left and right, then move to my lower lashes. I alternate between combing and brushing, to add volume and length while separating the lashes and avoiding big clumps of mascara to form. I then apply a second layer in the same manner.
I applied this mascara my own way too, however any mind-blowing effect stayed behind. When I followed the exact instructions on the pack however, this did make an actual difference! Which makes sense, as the brush is really different from any other brush I’ve ever tried. Especially the first step made a big difference, in which you must hold the comb part of the mascara brush on the roots of the lashes for a few seconds, before brushing the liquid into the rest of the lashes.
Results
As said, using the right technique (as described on the product) to apply the mascara is a must. The first layer of mascara seems OK but not doesn’t look more spectacular than any of my other mascara’s. After applying the second layer, the product lives up to its promises: my lashes look deep black, full, defined and especially longer - almost like fake lashes!!!
To compare: no mascara on my left eyelashes (right side for the viewers)I find that the mascara –unfortunately, I was hoping for a holy grail- doesn’t smudge less than any other mascara that I’ve tried. It is indeed incredibly water proof; working as a freelancer with a tight deadline, I had locked myself up in my study and neglected my looks for a few days. But no matter what I do, I always wash my face twice a day. When I looked into the mirror again after 5 days of mad work, the mascara was still on my lashes and thus hadn’t come off with water and face cleanser.
Conclusion
I love the effect that this Asian mascara creates for Western eyes and will definitely keep using it. I do need to find a good waterproof makeup remover through...Moreover, reading about the all the crazy methods to create bigger-looking eyes I do plan to try the eyelid stickers and glue, I do have double eyelids already, but look isn't as fresh at is used to be and my eyelids started to show some signs of time after I turned 30. I am incredibly curious to this beauty ritual millions of Asian girls and women undergo daily and whether it does anything for me...I guess not, but afterwards I can at least say I tried :)
Kiss Me Heroine “Impact Frame Mascara” in Black
Price: 23,90 SGD
Available at a.o. Watsons
