I love a luxurious beauty buy as much as the next editor. Triple-digit price tag for highlights that make you look like you’ve spent 10 days under the Mediterranean sun? Well, you wear your hair every day. Hard-to-source, dermatologist-approved sunscreen? That’s insurance against future wrinkles and sun damage, thanks. Jo Malone body lotion, spread thick like frosting on a cupcake? Well, that one is just indulgent. But if there’s one thing I can’t bring myself to drop serious cash on, it’s mascara . Take it from me: I’ve spent about six years doing this beauty thing, from working on the shop floor to judging awards for glossy magazines. By my count, I’ve tried more mascaras than I have individual lashes. On both eyes. Put together. And I always come back to the cheap ones. Mascara is often the first notch on the beauty bedpost for lots of women. Before experimenting with lipstick or trying out blusher, coating our lashes with something furtively liberated from our mum’s dressing table is how many of us started our beauty journey. Perhaps that element of nostalgia is part of what keeps me coming back. Knowing what I do now about my skin and what it likes, I’d be reluctant to turn back to my adolescent foundation of choice, nor would I wear Britney Spears Fantasy out of the house. But mascara – the kind I could get with my pocket money – sings a particular siren song.