Almay One Coat Get Up and Grow Mascara Review

This review is not sponsored in any way.  All products were bought with my own funds

I finally bit the bullet and decided to try mascaras that were designed to be healthy for the lashes.  You may have seen from my previous mascara review that I am addicted to having voluminous lashes.  I decided, though, that health was more important than big lashes and that I could work around a weaker, more natural looking formula.  So, I bought a tube of this Almay mascara.  I had never bought any Almay products before, and I was pleasantly surprised by this mascara.
First off, packaging.

 This mascara is not only supposed to be strengthening and moisturizing to the lashes, but also produce a lovely effect with only one coat.  Side note: this is precisely why I buy volumizing mascaras.  Not only can you produce a near-falsies effect, you only need one coat to look "done" on a lazy or busy morning.  Back to the mascara at hand, a look through the ingredients lets you know that the moisturizing ingredients are primarily silicon oils (a red flag for some) and the strengthening ingredient is protein, which can make hair rigid.  Whether your particular lashes will respond well to protein is different for everyone; but I would assume that if your head hair does not like protein-based products, your lashes won't either.

 The actual tube has a nice weight to it, and feels more expensive than in actually is.  The cap clicks softly when it is completely closed.  Simply lovely.
The brush...

 Is huge.  I expected a smaller, basic brush.  This one is wider at the ends than in the middle, which fits the contours of my prominent eyes surprisingly well.  My first impression upon seeing it, though, was something like this:

Whoa.

So, enough chatter, let's see it in action.

Naked lashes, curled.

One coat of mascara

So, I actually like the look of one coat.  It lifts the lashes and makes them wonderfully black, reasonably thick and a touch longer.  But I couldn't leave it well enough alone...I needed to see two coats.

Two coats and a bit of a comb-through

Wow!  This is the big, fluffy look I like.  For me, this rivals Maybelline's The Falsies for crazy volume.

This is the driest mascara formula I have found in the drugstore.  That may sound bad or gross, but let me explain; wet mascaras are difficult to apply.  They can be clumpy, smudgy, and either difficult to build or difficult to control in terms of how much gets glopped on.  This mascara feels like nothing while you're applying it, but has great visual impact.

I give this mascara a 9.5 out of 10.  I haven't had it long enough to know if it makes my lashes longer or stronger, but I love how it looks.  The ingredients are not for everyone; it is not organic or completely natural in origin.  I have a few more mascaras to review before I make my final choice, but this may just be a repurchase for me (mascara repurchases are extremely rare for me).  It costs about $7-$9 depending on which drugstore you purchase from.

Thanks for visiting, and have a fantastic day!

All opinions are my own, and I was not solicited to do this review.