M: I don’t know what it is about magazine freebies, E.
E: Flip flops. Endless canvas totes.
M: Body cream you will never use.
E: Crap sunglasses. I’d rather they stuck a pound coin to the cover. “Here, buy yourself something nice. Like a Kitkat.”
M: Yes. Or a nice pack of generic ibuprofen, perhaps. SOMETHING USEFUL. So I was pretty excited when I saw this month’s gift with purchase (GWP) in Elle.
E: Oh?
M: It will be of no interest to you, I fear. It is Mascara.
E: Oh, pff. They did that here with Belgian Elle. It was Chanel. I felt cheated of my GWP.
M: This is from Benefit. How do we feel about Benefit, E?
E: We are ambivalent. We own three half finished Benetints.
M: At first I thought their packaging was nice, their products intriguing. Then I started working right next to one of their London boutiques. They will. Not. Stop. Harrassing. People. About. their. EYEBROWS.
E: Ha, my friend Valerie swears by the Benefit brow bar and she is a proper beauty person.
M: It’s like some sort of weird eyebrow perversion. If you even glance in their direction, they will pounce upon you clad in those weird striped benetint aprons (what are you – BUTCHERS?), tweezers in hand.
E: They are brow fiends, feasting on stray brows.
M: Anyway, this mascara is “amusingly” called They’re Real! Please to be noting the annoying exclamation point.
E: I am singularly unamused by these jokey product names. SOAP AND GLORY, I AM LOOKING AT YOU.
M: Oh yes, Benetint and Soap and Glory clearly went to the same boarding school of perky cheeky hilariousness.
E: Playing lacrosse. Bliss was Head Girl.
M: Unscrew “They’re real”, though, and you’ll find a rather sinister little brush, like a mediaeval mace, but shrunken.
E: Ha. Is it full sized, this mascara?
M: No, it is pint sized.
E: “Shrunken medieval mace wand” Make a joy ad of that, Benetint.
M: It’s basically the mascara equivalent of one of those Lord of the Rings dwarves getting ready for battle.
E: Your nerd reference is lost on me, but no matter. How is the mascara itself?
M: It is good. Rich, glossy, dark. Defines your lashes well. The mace does a good job of separating them.
M: BUT.
E: But?
M: It starts smudging half way through the day. Panda eyes, E. THE PANDA EYES OF DOOM.
E: Poor show, Benedwarves.
M: Poor show indeed.
E: Would you buy it with your actual money? I’m guessing that’s a no.
M: No. I need my mascara to stay where it’s put. Mace or no mace.