KJH Microscara tubing mascara landed at Sephora this month, and three Cosmopolitan editors have been putting it through its paces, at the office, at concerts, and through every variation of a morning routine. The verdict? It is converting self-described mascara haters.
What Is the KJH Microscara Tubing Mascara?
The Microscara is the latest launch from KJH Brand, the makeup line created by Katie Jane Hughes, who is known for being Dua Lipa’s makeup artist and close friend. Hughes showcased the formula on Instagram, and the short clip was enough to pull in even the most mascara-sceptical viewers. A tiny, stubby spoolie. No aggressive combing. Lashes lifted in seconds.
Priced at $26, the mascara is a tubing formula, meaning it wraps around each lash individually rather than coating them with pigment. According to Byrdie, the Microscara launched on 21 August and was formulated and made in Italy. That Italian production is worth flagging: the formula’s ability to separate and elongate without any clumping or flaking is where it earns its keep, and those results tend to reflect serious formulation work.
Three Editors, Three Takes on the KJH Microscara
Jasmine Hyman tested it first and called it ‘sorcery.’ She went in sceptical of the micro applicator, was won over within minutes, and noted that in about five swipes it completely lifted her lashes without a curler in sight. She also flagged something that trips up most people with tubing mascaras: removal. ‘A bit of cleansing balm or micellar water is all it takes to remove it, with no aggressive rubbing required,’ she wrote. For anyone who has ever lost a lash to a stubborn tubing formula, that detail matters.
Beth Gillette came in as a self-described mascara snob. Her brief: lashes that look long and natural, hold a curl, and do not look overdone. The Microscara surprised her in the opposite direction to what she expected. Rather than natural-looking, it gave her lashes a doll-like, extension-level result, getting into the inner corners and stretching small lashes out long. One coat. Zero clumps. Her only complaint? The wand looks enough like a brow gel applicator that she has almost brushed it through her brows by accident. Her formal request to Hughes: make it in brown.
Mikhaila Archer is a long-term Refy loyalist who put the Microscara to a proper test: a Jonas Brothers concert, worn behind glasses, requiring something that felt done without going overboard. She has not reached for anything else since. The smaller applicator worked on both top and bottom lashes, and she found she could build coverage up or down depending on what the occasion called for.
Why the Micro Wand Makes the Difference
The applicator is the story here. Most mascaras fail at the inner corner, the bottom lash line, or the tiny hairs closest to the lid. The micro spoolie reaches all of them. Gillette pointed out that it easily separates every lash during application. Hyman noted it clings to and elongates tiny hairs that most wands miss entirely.
Tubing formulas have always had a loyal following among people who hate transfer and flaking, but removal anxiety puts a lot of people off. KJH’s version seems to have addressed that: the consensus across all three testers is that it slides off cleanly without taking lashes with it.
The Italian formulation behind it clearly plays a part in that. Formulated and made in Italy, as Byrdie confirmed, the Microscara sits in a category where the production origin tends to reflect the finish quality. At $26, it lands at a price point that makes multiple purchases easy, which matters when editors are already eyeing a future brown version.
Hughes’s brand had been on shelves elsewhere before Sephora, but the Sephora launch opens it up to Beauty Insider points and a much wider retail footprint. If you have been on the fence, that is a practical reason to stop waiting. The KJH Microscara tubing mascara is available now at Sephora for $26.