Mikayla Nogueira and Mascara-Gate 2023 — The Controversy Explained

TikTok influencer Mikayla Nogueira is known for her thick accent, amazing looks, and sassy personality. More recently, though, she has been known for her controversy.

Late last year, Mikayla got slammed for a TikTok in which she complained about being an influencer. And just last month, she was accused of Photoshopping her pictures and videos.

Now, Mikayla is under fire for a sponsored post for L'Oréal mascara...

On Jan. 24, 2023, Mikayla posted the above TikTok promoting L'Oréal's new mascara, Telescopic Lift. In the video, Mikayla explains how this mascara "literally just changed [her] life. This looks like false lashes."

She then proceeds to put the mascara on, showing us the length that she gets with this mascara. Mikayla ends the video by stating that she's "not sure anyone's going to ever be able to compete with this mascara."

Nothing seems too out of the ordinary, right? Well, the problem is that Mikayla is allegedly wearing false eyelashes in the video, misleading the viewers. And the people in the comments definitely didn't let her off the hook...

Lots of people are calling her out for wearing false lashes, saying things like, "Tell me which falsies you used." Others are poking fun at the situation by using the pun "lashlighting."

Still, some aren't too enthused, asking Mikayla not to "insult our intelligence like this."

Other people are taking to the platform to voice their discontent. Creator @alissa.ashley is one of those voices. In her video breaking down the controversy, Alissa speaks on losing people's trust:

"Stuff like this is why people do not trust influencers and it's so upsetting. Like, little moments like this are why influencers as a whole get a bad rap. More specifically beauty influencers who do product reviews, who do sponsorships. That's why people are always saying, "Oh, we can't trust them"... Everyone gets impacted by that because now you don't know who to trust... It just sets us back because then everyone thinks that everything posted is f--ing fake."

Even Jeffree Star was commenting on the drama, tweeting, "I'll be BACK to reviewing makeup products new week. These f--ing b---hes can't stop lying to their audiences and it makes me SICK."

Jeffree followed up by tweeting a picture of the mascara, saying, "Let’s get this review started… Jeffree Star-approved or nah?!"

This obviously made the fans excited. One person even tweeted, "I just wanna thank Mikayla for getting the crept keeper (Jeffree Star) to come out of retirement."

Our personal take is that if Mikayla is wearing false eyelashes in the TikTok to promote the mascara, then she probably shouldn't have done that. We totally hear the people who feel like their trust has been broken. We all come to TikTok for recommendations, and we trust our influencers to give us the real real.

But at the same time, the models in almost any mascara commercial you watch are wearing false eyelashes. Yes, influencer marketing is definitely a different beast than commercials. But we're bringing this up to shed the light and say maybe let's give her a little bit of slack? People make mistakes. Try the mascara for yourself and return it if you don't like it.