This Not That: Lancôme Cils Booster XL Super-Enhancing Mascara Primer

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Lancôme Cils Booster XL Super-Enhancing Mascara Primer is the primer that beauty editors have been quietly hoarding for years. Those micro-fibers coat every single lash and make mascara look like it's doing twice the work — you get that elongated, almost-false-lash effect that regular mascara alone just can't give you. It's genuinely a great product and one I'v been using for years. The problem is you're paying $30 for 5.5ml of primer. That's a lot to spend on something that goes under your mascara every single day.

L'Oréal Voluminous Lash Primer does the same job for $10. Same concept of lengthening, volumizing, and conditioning lashes before mascara — and it's completely fragrance-free, just like Lancôme, making it the cleaner, simpler comparison. It's lightweight, non-clumping, and has been a drugstore staple for years for a reason. The one thing it can't fully replicate is the micro-fibers, but it still adds a huge amount of volume and length even without it! I also find because it doesn't use the micro-fibers, it clumps less — which is actually a welcome addition.

If you're using a lash primer every day and you don't want to spend $30 every few months to do it, L'Oréal is the move.