Babe Lash To Babe Original: What Changed And What Stayed

In 1915, a kitchen stove fire singed the lashes and brows of Mabel Williams in Chicago. According to her grandniece Sharrie Williams, Mabel mixed petroleum jelly with coal dust and burnt cork ash and painted it on to darken what was left. Her brother Tom Lyle watched, started selling a version by mail order, and later named the company Maybelline for her. Historians argue about the details, but the pattern is clear enough: lash care in beauty usually starts as a small personal fix that somebody decides to bottle.

Babe Lash has that same modest beginning. It launched in 2013 in Salt Lake City as an offshoot of Babe Hair, a hair-extension company, around one product, a lash serum. It separated from Babe Hair in 2017 to focus on beauty, and the serum was sold to salons and distributors before it went direct to shoppers in 2018. The owner is Beauty Industry Group, founded in 2004 by Logan Woolley and led by CEO Derrick Porter. In June 2022 the brand renamed itself Babe Original as it moved into brows, hair and lips. What I find useful is how plainly it says the Essential Lash Serum formula did not change in that rebrand, only the name and packaging. If you still call it Babe Lash, you are looking for the same tube.

The trick is to read the first grid as a lash routine. The Essential Serum and its Mini are the original, and the Renewing Lash Serum is the newer peptide one. The Enhancing Lash Conditioner and Intensifying Lash Primer are the supporting steps, while the 4 Real Mascara, Volumizing Mascara and Lash Separator handle the daily finishing.

Start with a set if you are new. Buying separate pieces of a routine before you know the routine is how bathroom drawers fill up with half-used tubes, and a bundle at least keeps the pieces meant to work together in one box.

The AM/PM Lash Treatment Set splits the routine into a day step and a night step, which is a sensible way to keep it from feeling like homework. The Essential Lash & Brow Builder Duo and Renewing Lash & Brow Builder Duo are for people treating lashes and brows at once, and I like them for anyone who does one face routine in the morning and does not want to run two. The TLC Total Lash Care Kit is the fuller route, and the Triple Threat Mini Set is the small one to test the range with. The Viral Lashes Set is the brand's crowd favorite grouped together.

Locks & Lash Set crosses into hair, and the Limited Edition Lash Essentials Set is the seasonal version of the core lineup. A gift, in other words, that you would actually use.

A habit worth borrowing: put the serum next to your toothbrush, not in the makeup bag. Anything you do at the same time every night is a habit, and anything you have to remember is a plan.

What I would skip: buying a big set to try a serum for the first time. Begin with the Mini.

Here is how I would look at the brand's spread beyond lashes: it started with one bottle and kept asking what else the same idea could do. Some of the answers are more convincing to me than others, and that is fine.

Brows are the natural neighbor. Amplifying Brow Serum uses the lash-serum thinking on the brow, and Volumizing Brow Filler is the daily fill that goes on top. Cloud 9 Lip Serum and Plumping Lip Jelly take it to lip care, and I would keep those in the bag that lives by the door. Halo Face Serum and Eye Bright Under-Eye Serum are the furthest from where the brand began, so I would treat them as their own purchases and judge them on their own merits. Densifying Hair Serum and Glossy Rinse Hair Treatment XL loop back to the brand's hair-extension roots under Beauty Industry Group.

One rule for a range this wide: add one new category at a time. If you try a brow serum, a lip serum and a hair serum in the same week, you will never know which one your skin disliked, and that matters if something turns out to bother you.

What I would skip: layering a new under-eye serum right before an event. Use it for a week or two in your routine first.

Before you commit to one serum, read the label the way you would read a menu. Look for what the brand says it is built on, how long it tells you to use it, and whether it asks you to see a doctor if you have an eye condition. Two serums that look alike on the shelf can be built on very different ideas.

Sweed's Eyelash Growth Serum and Olaplex's Lashbond Building and Enhancing Serum are the two I would compare first, and both lean on a biotin-and-peptide approach. Grande Cosmetics' GrandeLASH-MD is one of the longest-running names in the category, which counts for something. Vegamour's GRO Volumizing Lash Serum and Milk Makeup's KUSH Lash + Brow Enhancing Serum, like Babe Original, reach into brows too. The Ordinary's Multi-Peptide Lash and Brow Serum is the peptide-led one, and KISS's Lash Thickening Serum is the simple, no-fuss option. Augustinus Bader's The Eyebrow and Lash Enhancing Serum comes from a skincare-first brand.

A pairing I like: a serum at night and a good mascara by day. One works while you sleep, the other gives you an answer at the mirror.

What I would skip: using two lash serums at once. If your eyes get irritated, you will not know which one is to blame.

I think the Essential Lash Serum is the right place to start, because it is the product the brand has leaned on since 2013. The brand says it is built around biotin, panthenol, sodium hyaluronate, vitamin E and amino acids, and it cites a 12-week study of its own with encouraging results, which is the brand's report and not independent testing. The newer Renewing Lash Serum is described by the brand as peptide-powered and prostaglandin-free, and I would read that label carefully, since prostaglandin-analog ingredients carry cautions of their own.

So I would pick one serum, use it for the full stretch the brand recommends, and only then add a brow serum or a set. Mabel Williams had coal dust and a stove fire. You have a labeled tube and a calendar. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Wet Brush, the Original Detangler and Hempz Lotion and the Original 1998 Herbal Moisturizer.