Sweet Pink Smooth Liquid Eye Liner (Born Pretty Eyeliner with a Panda Design)

Felt tip eyeliners are some of my favourite beauty products that I basically discovered just last year and I love trying out new ones. I'll shallowly admit that this one caught my eye because of the adorable panda packaging, but I didn't expect much from it mostly because of my personal prejudice against such gimmicky products. I was wrong. Very wrong. This turned to be the best eyeliner I got in this year and if you follow me regularly then you'll know that I've bought a few available in Slovenia recently, with two turning out to be massive and expensive disappointments.

First thing that caught my eye was an astonishing similarity with my beloved Kardashian Beauty eyeliner as well as the overpriced Artdeco's version in terms of the shape and material of the applicator. This is the best size and shape that I've found so far for my eye hooded shape. It's more on the small side and quite sharp, meaning you can do very precise designs. With it flick are easy to do, though I've actually stopped doing flicks as currently I prefer a rounder shape of the eye. 

The formula is nicely black and it reminds me most of the Artdeco one in a way that it also dries quite fast on the skin , but applying it over the dried part of the eyeliner, doesn't completely ruin it by flaking off as it happened at the Artdeco one. I love how the nib is still completely saturated after several weeks of use and that's including the tip. Basically it's still like new and I've very happy about that. It also doesn't dry out by the time you move on the next eye, which I greatly appreciate. My only concern is about the applicator becoming flimsy quickly as I can already see that the tip a bit frayed when I'm applying it.

Compared to other good liners I've tried, staying power is the only thing that isn't quite as good, but it's very close. I'm used to very black, long lasting liners that are as black at 11 P.M. as when I applied it in the morning, but this one fades to a more greyish shade. It will of course easily lasts through an average school/work hour day, but at the end of the day upon closer inspection the eyeliner won't be quite as black as when applied. The wings sometimes survive intact, then sometimes they don't, it probably has more to do with how often someone touches the face.

The panda packaging is so adorable and there is a spring inside the lid to make sure that the liner doesn't dry out. I've had it for about a month and it's still going strong.  

I am super happy with this liner. It's such a relief to be finally able to do a line with a product that works like it should and that I don't have to shake it furiously amidst application because the tip lost all its colour. I actually think that it's getting better with time, but I am aware that the time will come when I'll have to say goodbye to it, I'm just not sure when. Considering how well it's still performing, I'm hoping that won't happen so soon. This was really such a pleasant surprise and it's actually cheapest out of all my favourites. 

It's currently $5.99 on Born Pretty. I got a code to that gives you 10% off your order MKOH10, which is also in the sidebar (it's a direct link to the website). Born Pretty also has an app for iPhones.

*Product was sent to me.

Models Own Gel Eyeliner

Before I received this in the mail, it's been a while since I've used a gel eyeliner. Since I found felt tip eyeliners, all others seem too fussy to use. My particular pet peeve is cleaning the brush after each use if I want a nice result. I used to own Essence's and Mac's gel eyeliner, and when I first tried this Models Own one, the dry texture of it surprised me and not in a good way.

I don't quite understand why they decided to make the formula so dry. It's very strange actually how when you swipe some product from the pot and it reveals the moist layer below and by the next day that part is dry again. I'm not terribly fond of that as I have a feeling it will dry out really fast. The thick formula and consequential lack of fluidity means that's it's more difficult to do a sharp line. It's not impossible as you'll see from the pictures, but you end up with a much thicker line because you have to fix it a lot. I'm especially having problems with creating a sharp flick. Because it's so dry, a lot of the pigmentation is lost. I need to go over the line a few times to get a proper opaque line, which means sharp edges are challenging to do. Thin lines end up looking softer because of the diffused edges, so it's a similar effect to using an eyeshadow. 

 

The one thing that did impress me was the staying power as it lasts very well on the lids. Sometimes flicks stay all day, sometimes they don't, but the main line survives the day well on my normal lids.

 Thin line attempt.

A crisper, but thick line.

I'm not a fan of the added brush. I dislike the shape of it and it very difficult to do a flick with it. It would need to be at least cut at an angle. For the two looks above I used Alverde's and Essence's gel eyeliner brushes.

I just think this is too dry. It's not useless, but very difficult to work with and I don't have the patience for it. It should be a lot more fluid to be able to create more precise lines, but at least the staying power is nice. I much prefer using felt tip liners because I can create thin lines and they are so much easier to use. 

Models Own is sold on their website and Asos. Gel eyeliner costs £4.99.

Gel eyeliner so mi poslali iz Click2Chic. Izdelke Models Own lahko najdete tukaj, moj najljubši eyeliner pa je tukaj. 

Have a great day!

Artdeco High Precision Liquid Liner

This is the most perplexing liner I've ever had. I write reviews in advance and I've had one version of this starting with: "I hate this." It has been such a struggle because for quite a while it didn't work at all and even now it doesn't work the way it should, or at least the way the tester in the shop indicated. Someone told me this is their favourite liner, so I'm thinking I might have got a faulty one because it's just not possible that the product in the shop performed so differently. 

The formula has a fatal flaw - it dries too fast. This means that though you are able to do a nice line within seconds after you open it, when you get to the flick, it's already too dry. Drying time also affects the ability to fix the line. If you go over the line again to fill in the gaps or make it more even, the liner just flakes off where the applicator touches it. This results in a patchy, uneven application and no chance to do a flick. The formula also dries too fast on the nib, so it prevents the formula to saturate the nib quickly enough because what's on the applicator dries in contact with air, which appears to create a barrier for a fresh pack of formula. The more I shake it, the less I think is actually on there. You can do a line when you open the lid and the formula is still fresh, however, the line must be perfect and done quickly. Now either I'm an idiot and I did something wrong from the start and that's why it's not working the way it should or maybe mine just faulty. But for this price I expect it to work flawlessly, so better than L'Oreal's, which is still functional enough after more than half a year. 

I tried everything, I even left it for a week so that maybe the nib would get saturated again and it did, but again I wasn't able to do a perfect line. By the way I store all my liners upside down. It looks fine on the swatch because it did the line when the formula was fresh and I drew with the base of the nib.

I'm not going to say that what I got on the pictures was the best application I ever got with this liner, but this is better than it averagely performed overall, especially from the start when it did nothing. Of course, I got a decent line a couple of times, but I had no intention doing the pictures a thousand times. As you can see it worked relatively decently on the first eye, but by the second it was already too dry to complete the line. And that's not how such an expensive liner should perform in the first month of use.

The shape of the nib is perfect and it's pretty much identical to the one from Kardashian Beauty (mine is completely frayed). In fact this liner is remarkably similar to that one is almost every respect, apart from the formula. This would be the perfect liner if the formula worked the way it should.

I heard people say that this liner is great. If any of you has tried this liner, could you please tell me if I'm doing something wrong. But even so, it's a liner. It shouldn't be rocket science for me to be able to use it. The tester in the shop was so promising, so I'm devastated that after paying 17 € my liner never worked properly and I was never able to do a nice crisp line with a flick. This eyeliner was way to expensive to perform so irregularly. I'll be even more angry if I got a faulty one, but I'm not going to repurchase it to find out. I could get five Essence eyeliners for that money and at least those would last me more than five months, or I could try that Stila one everyone is raving about. I don't want to discourage you if you want to try it because the formula in the shop seemed perfect, but I won't be trying my luck again. I've been burned twice just this year, once by L'Oreal's and now by this one, which essentially means that I threw away 27 €, which makes me very, very angry.

It was 16.99 € in Müller.

Edit 22. July 2015: I don't know what exactly happened, must be some sort of a miracle worthy of attention of the Vatican, but one day the liner just started working. And perfectly, might I add. The entire applicator was very saturated with product and I could do even the smallest fixes. Now the tip is already a bit dry, but it's still performing much better than when I first got it. Regardless, I resent its initial problems because when I buy a liner, I want it to work, especially if it's as expensive as this one. 

Have a great day!

Essence Eyeliner Pen Waterproof

I'm a huge fan of these felt tip eyeliners because they are so easy to use, there is no need for washing any brushes and they are more precise than any other liners I've tried. Basically, these just work for me and my eye shape. Before purchasing this Essence one, I had been very disappointed by L'Oreal's So Couture liner (worst liner ever) and this one was meant merely as a quick replacement or an-in-between-good-liners liner and that's really all it was. It's good and I would still repurchase it if I were in a similar situation, but it's not a favourite (Kardashian Beauty's one and L'Oreal's Super Slim are still firmly at the top of my favourites).

While exploring the selection of felt tip liners in my country (ok, I just checked DM to be honest. I was in a hurry), this one was the only one with a decent shape of the nib. The applicator is one of the smaller ones and a bit smaller than L'Oreal Super Slim's, however, the slightly rounded design isn't ideal for drawing super thin lines, but it can create a nice even line, it just takes a bit more effort and the line quickly ends up too thick if you're not careful. 

The formula perplexes me. It's nicely black and pigmented, so really no different from L'Oreal's for example and that's fantastic for the price. However, this is supposed to a be waterproof formula and I've seen some heavy smudging a couple of times, but then on other occasions, when I rubbed over the line with a finger, it stayed put. It doesn't completely survive in moist conditions like crying and it definitely disappears from the inner as well as outer corners (flicks). I've had some seriously hilarious panda eyes and then other times it just sort of crumbled off in contact with water. But otherwise it lasts surprisingly well on the lids. Today I applied it at 10 A.M. and now at almost 9 P.M. and it's still going strong with the exceptions of inner corners, but basically it looks as black as when I applied it. 

I took this picture of the applied eyeliner exactly one month after purchasing it and the tip was already so dry that I couldn't complete the flicks. There was enough colour in the base to do the main line, but the flick ended up smudgy. I know I shouldn't expect a lot from a 3 € liner, but one month is not impressive at all, though it's still useful. 

Overall I'm happy with it for the price, but it's not as good as some more expensive ones, mostly because of the shape of the nib (though definitely a billion times better than L'Oreal's Couture). It's a very decent liner that pleasantly surprised me, especially because one of their old versions was horrible and it almost completely put me off their liners. If you're on a budget or you just want to try this form of liners, this is a nice one. It costs 2.79€ in DM.

Have a great day!

L'Oreal Super Liner So Couture

If you've seen one of my New in posts, where this liner first appeared on my blog, you might have been clued in that this won't a terribly positive review. This is without a doubt the worst liner I've ever tried and it makes me madder than it should, mostly because I paid 10 € for a liner with which I could never do anything more than a grey, smudged out line. Such felt tip liners, though they aren't rare in our drugstores, the ones we have here mostly have very oddly shaped nibs that don't look precise enough, so I quickly dismiss them, however, this one seemed very promising. I have a couple of my favourite felt tip liners, Kardashian Beauty's Deeply Felt and L'Oreal's Super Liner Perfect Slim, which I can only get online as for some reason L'Oreal only sells the So Couture version in our drugstores. 

The very first use should have been a clue already, but I just assumed that some ill-mannered person had placed a used liner at the back of the line and forgot to close it well. I always take the product that is either at the back or somewhere in the middle, since some people have a hard time grasping what testers are for, though I do understand them in a way, as testers can be quite disgusting sometimes, but in this case there was no tester to begin with. When I came home to use it, it was completely dry. I tried shaking it and stored it downwards for a couple of hours, but it didn't help much. There was steam coming from my ears, I was that mad. I went back to replace it and they replaced it with no problems, but placed the one I returned back on the stand (*awkward cricket sound*). This one seemed to work on the back of my hand, though admittedly the formula wasn't nearly as black or pigmented as Super Slim's. But when I went to do my liner, it ran dry before I even had a chance to finish it. I tried shaking it and it helped at bit, but it was soon dry again. I must shake it constantly to get the nib saturated with product and sometimes it's so dry I can't do anything. It's just a nightmare to work with. Seriously, all my old liners are blacker and more fluid that this as you'll see in the picture. I got Kardashian's liner last year in September, L'Oreal's in August, Manhattan's in July and only Essence's is new. There is no picture of L'Oreal's on the eyes as I couldn't even do a decent line.

The nib is the smallest out of the liners I've tried, which I expected to really like, but it's not as easy to draw an even line as with for example Perfect Slim. But it is handy if you want to create very small, intricate designs, at least it would be if it were pigmented enough. I still like Kardashian's Beauty's nib best.

Is it possible I had bad luck twice with this liner and got both that were already almost dry? Perhaps. But I'm not willing to give it any other chance. Based on my experience with the Perfect Slim, I expected the same pigmented, excellent formula, but what I got was a whole lot of bother. At 9.99 € per liner, even if I did buy it with a discount, this was a major disappointment. If only I knew I would be wasting 10 € on something so useless, I would just taken a much cheaper Essence liner or order online instead. I recently bought one from Essence and it performs a million times better for one third of the price. But I'll be sticking to Perfect Slim or Deeply Felt in the future.

Have a great day!

Neutral Matte Palettes: Urban Decay Naked2 Basics & Catrice Absolute Matt

I am a huge fan of matte neutral palettes, especially of those with prevailing taupe shades. The original Naked Basics palette (review here) was what I used for my every day makeup since I got it last year and now I have two more such palettes - an Urban Decay's spin-off named Naked2 Basics and a very budget option by Catrice called Absolute Matt. Both have fast become my favourites and I use all three palettes in combination, depending on what kind of look I'm going for.

URBAN DECAY Naked2 Basics Palette

Naked2 Basics is quite different from the original one, it's definitely different enough to justify having both. I look at it almost as a complimentary palette, so what I thought was missing from the first one, is in this one. Perhaps this one might be more appealing to those with a medium skin tone who found the shades in original Basics too similar and mostly too light, since Naked2 excludes the light skin toned shades and replaces them with medium browns. 

The shades in the palette are:

Skimp - the only shimmery shade in the palette, just as Venus in the original Naked Basics. 

Stark - a matte warm medium skin tone shade. On me it's already a shade that is darker than my skin tone, so I have to limit the use to only the lid. This should be a great base for medium skin tones. W.O.S. from the original and the second shade from the Catrice's Absolute Matte are the shades I use all over the lid as a base since they are lighter. 

Frisk - a matte light taupe shade. It's cooler than Naked 2 from the original, but doesn't look too different when blended out on the skin. I adore such shades.

Cover - a matte medium warm-ish brown. Again a shade I love.

Primal - a matte cool-toned brown. It's like a cooler version of Cover, but a bit darker. Great colour that I use a lot.

Undone - a deep grey. I would prefer a charcoal black here, but it's a nice shade to deepen the crease if you're not as fair as me. I prefer Faint from the original or that dark browh shade in Catrice's Absoloute Matte for that job.

The quality of the eyeshadows is again superb. It's a collection of fantastic quality matte eyeshadows, all are very pigmented (since I'm pale, with most shades I only need to barely touch the surface of the eyeshadow to get enough pay-off), they are so smooth, blend well and last decently on the lids without creasing even without primer (I have normal eyelids). The packaging is small and compact with a big mirror and a rubbery surface. To me this is just the perfect palette.

CATRICE Absolute Matt Eyeshadow Palette 010 Eyes Wide Matt

I love Catrice's single eyeshadows because they are of great quality and they certainly have some of the best matte eyeshadows, but I never tried any of their palettes because I heard somewhere than the quality is far worse and that it lacks pigmentation. Whoever said that is wrong. At least when it comes to this palette. The quality is amazing, I would even call it high-end-ish, though I admit that the eyeshadows are not quite as smooth as Urban Decay's, but on the lids they behave exactly the same. They are certainly better than, for example, Mac's Wedge, which I find quite hard. 

The palette contains:

A matte white - on my skin it's actually no different to the second shade in the palette, so I can use it all over as a base, but I don't often. It's the best performing white eyeshadow I ever tried, since most were so chalky.

A matte pink-toned skin tone shade - I use this shade so much, I use it interchangeably with W.O.S. from the original Basics as a base all over the lids.

A matte cool-toned medium taupe - this is a similar shade to Frisk from the Naked2 Basics. I use it either on the lid or in the crease as the initial "base" shade that ensures a softer transition.

A matte warm-ish medium taupe - a slightly darker shade than Cover from Naked2 Basics. It's a shade I use a lot in the crease.

A matte deep cool-toned brown - one of my favourite shades and one I use pretty much every day. It's a shade that adds a lot of depth and definition to the crease just like Faint from the original Naked Basics, but this one is darker and cooler.

A matte deep grey/black - again another shade that is not quite dark enough just as Undone in Naked2 Basics. I don't mean that they are bad shades at all, but I would prefer black because I use it as a liner and I have no use of such deep grey's. But it's a nicely pigmented shade that blends well.

Another great set of eyeshadows that to me is like a mix between both Basics in terms of variety of shades, They can be used for a subtle every day look or a more smoky effect, but in general they are really good, they perform so well, are very pigmented (again I need only to touch the deeper shades to get enough pay-off for me) and they blend well. The packaging does feel cheap even with an added brush/sponge applicator, but it suffices. It's an amazing palette and I highly recommend it to every one, whether you're on a budget or not. 

As you may have established, I love both of these palette. Well, all three actually. If you're into matte neutrals, I highly recommend all three, but if you're on a budget or you just want a nice cheap thrill, I highly recommend that you at least get the Catrice one. Naked Basic and Naked2 Basics cost about 28 € (I waited for a discount when buying both), while the Catrice Absolute Matte costs 5.29 €.

Have a great day!

Kardashian Beauty Deeply Felt Precision Tip Eyeliner

I have found an even better felt tip liner than my beloved L'Oreal's Super Liner Perfect Slim and it was where I least expected. For the past year or so, since I bought my first felt tip eyeliner, I have been using them religiously, even on "no make-up days" because a thin, precise line on the top lash line just makes my eyes more defined and not so tired looking. L'Oreal's was my favourite for a long time and I still love it, but for the past month I've been using Deeply Felt and it's even better.  

The nib is the smallest I've used so far and it's that feature that makes it more precise and even easier to use when drawing flicks. I presume that because it's smaller, it should stay saturated with ink longer, at least I hope so (L'Oreal's lasts very long). The nib also feels a bit smoother compared to L'Oreal's, like it's a different type of material and not one like at marker pens. The formula is more liquid than at other felt tip liners I've tried meaning it looks more smooth around the edges, especially when it comes to drawing a flick and it's very intensely black. It allows to create even thinner lines than L'Oreal's and they are smoother.

Staying power is impressive as well, but not better than L'Oreal's. In fact it's about the same, both last all day on me without fading, provided of course I don't rub my eyes (I should also mention that my lid are normal and I don't normally use a primer).

I've been using it for about a month every day and it has gotten a touch drier, however, the nib is still saturated as well as the tip, so it still allows to create super thin lines with the tip and I don't have to use it sideways to draw the line with the base of the nib. 

Deeply Felt is more expensive than L'Oreal's, however, I have completely fallen in love with it and I will continue repurchasing it. I'm really happy I had the chance to try it, my prejudice (and the refusal to let the K-family fill their coffers at my expense) would probably stop me from ever doing so if I weren't given this to test.

I was given this to try, but international readers can get it on Feel Unique for 15.54 €.

Izdelek mi je bil podarjen za preizkus s strani Clik2Chic, ki pa trenutno še nima tega eyelinerja na voljo, ampak menda bo. Druge izdelke Kardashian Beauty lahko najdete tukaj.

Have a great day!