Maybelline Great Lash. Is there any other product that inspires more debate?

Beauty magazines tout it as a "hall of fame" mascara year after year, while women everywhere whisper, "I know I'm supposed to love it, but...it's crap." Those whispers have been getting louder every year. And now with the proliferation of beauty blogs and sites like Makeupalley, the whispers have reached fever pitch.

I'll come right out and say it: I loathe this product, and I can't understand all the raves. To me, it doesn't even reach the level of "average mascara." It smudges (everywhere), it clumps, it creates chunky spider-lashes. Basically, it does everything that a good mascara shouldn't do, not to mention that it doesn't build significant volume or length.

(Now, a little aside: Ironically, I reached the final round of interviews for a marketing position with Maybelline 5 years ago, when I graduated college. I dropped out of the process to accept an offer with my current company. Can you imagine if promoting Great Lash was my job? Bah!)

When I was in high school, the pink and green tube was ubiquitous. We were just learning about beauty products and we relied on the magazines to tell us what was good. 10 years later, I only know a couple of people who use it, and their reason is usually the same - "Allure says it's the best!" Well, I guess if you take the magazines at their word, you'd believe that, but there are SO many better mascaras on the market, even from the same brand!

I'm always surprised when I see an anomaly, a generally-in-the-know girl who still loves the Great Lash. Clumps of Mascara is one of them; she likes it and so do some of her readers. Whatever floats your boat, right? But when I wrote about it in the Encyclopedia of Mascara, many of you stood with me in our collective distaste for this product. Were the Great Lash supporters just lurking? Come out! I want to hear from you!

Maybelline says Great Lash is the #1 selling mascara in America. I wonder what market share that represents; I don't think it can be that high, just based on the amount of competition in the market. Still, it would be interesting to know.

For now, let's do some informal research of our own. Tell me: