“Black Mascara” is the second single of RAYE’s debut album “My 21st Century Blues”. The song was performed through-out RAYE’s 2022 live performance sets where she’d make a speech about finally being free from her past label. On the 1st of July, the music video of “Hard Out Here,” the first single of R1 was released which gave fans a snippet of the song at the end of the music video. On the 11th of August, RAYE posted the snippet at the end of the music video announcing that it’d be the second single and it’d be released on the 26th of August.

The following day the song was registered on TikTok & the studio version of the song was first heard. On the 17th of August, RAYE announced via YouTube shorts that there would be a different release date, changing it to the 24th August., day later announcing it on other social media’s. The music video was released on the same day of the release as well.