Chanel Inimitable Intense Mascara: A Review

When it comes to mascaras, I'm a tough crowd to please. You see, I kind of want it all: length, mega-volume, curl, intense pigmentation, easy removal and low price. But, until I find my holy grail one, I am willing to deviate from the drugstore price range every now and then and try the offerings of the high-end market too - you never exclude a promising candidate for the HG run, right?

So, finding out that my favourite high-end mascara, Chanel Exceptionnel had been discontinued in the black shade (I kid you not, purple and the rest are apparently still being manufactured for some peculiar reason), I went for what I thought was the next best thing: Chanel Inimitable Intense.
I've never reviewed a mascara before, so excuse the numbered system (I need to make sure I'm not forgetting anything).

1. First things first: the wand is a plain rubber one, nothing unique here or special enough to photograph.

2. Performance - wise, Chanel describes this as an all-inclusive mascara, i.e. one that lengthens, volumises, curls and separates. Based on my experience with it, I'd say that it's a lengthening and volumising mascara. It will not add to the curl of your own lashes, but it will hold whatever curl you have from before. As for the separating claim, eh, not really... Cue pics:

As you can see, it does a pretty good job of defining your lashes after only one coat: length and volume are there and the lashes look nice and fanned out. That kind of stops being the case once you apply the second coat though: as you can see from the photo, that's when the clumps start to get noticeable and the result verges on spidery. Don't get me wrong, I do love the over-the-top dramatic lash effect, but in my ideal world, I'd like that to occur with as little clumps as possible and I feel that Inimitable Intense didn't really deliver in that department.

3. Layering will show another problem also, apart from the clumpiness: the lashes will start to feel hard to the touch. Now, this may not be an issue for most, but I do want my mascara to add drama without making my lashes feel like a plastic thing that's about to break. If you only stick to one coat, however, this won't be an issue.

4. As for the wear, I have to say, you get super black lashes with no signs of flakiness, no matter how many hours you have it on or coats you apply.

5. Removeability-wise, it's not ideal. You gotta take your time with it, so as to make sure you've got it all off. Definitely a mascara for oil based makeup removers, or just the strongest stuff you got (mind you, this ain't labeled as wateproof).

6. Lastly, the formula is a dry one. As in, if you can manage to get 2 months out of it, you should consider yourself lucky. Definitely not impressive when you've spent whatever hefty amount it cost.

As you can probably tell, this is not a mascara that I'll be repurchasing. I like the result, but I'm not wowed by it, and I think that there are much more affordable mascaras out there that perform as good (if not better), but last longer and are easier to layer and remove. At least I can now cross Chanel off my HG mascara search list. Well, that's something.

What is your favourite mascara of all time? Has any high-end brand let you down also?