My first eyeliner was one of those automatic pencil liners by Maybelline. You know, the ones you can twist up and down. The Maybelline Unstoppable.
Thankfully, I have learned better since then. With the Maybelline I had to drag it back and forth across my lid, tugging and tugging before the color would go on! And boy, did it skip. It was impossible to create a thin, even line.. Finally, I discovered the beauty that is a gel liner.I have used gel liners far and wide, starting with MAC Fluidline in Blitz and Glitz my first happy year in college. Gel liners were an amazing discovery for me---no tug, easy application, and super easy winged eyes with an angle liner. Everything I wanted the drugstore pencils to be.
I used Fluidline for many years with no qualms, until I one day heard the good ladies over at Specktra.net say that the Bobbi Brown gel liner is such and such, so much better, etc etc. Of course, being the Specktraette I am, I immediately sprung for it.
According to Bobbi Brown, this product is:
Awarded: "Elle" ‘Genius Award’ (April 2008), "In Style" 'Best Beauty Buy' (2008), and "Allure" ‘Reader's Choice Award’ (2008).
Our popular long-wearing eyeliner offers the precision of liquid liner and the ease of a gel-based formula.
It's awesome, as it turns out. Everyone was right. Here are some comparisons with other brand eyeliners:
- It stays put with some UDPP until the end of the day. Yesterday, for intance, I wore it for something like 17 hours and it didn't budge. At all. I have problems with MAC Fluidline in this area.
- It's really easy to remove at night, despote the way it doesn't move on your eyes normally. I like the similar look of the Urban Decay pencils but those are not as easy to remove as the Bobbi Brown.
- It doesn't skip or clump up on my brush like the L'Oreal gel liner does (though I have that one in the midnight blue color and it's gawwww-geous).
- It applies really easily, and smooth. I only have to go over the line once or twice, whereas with Fluidline I often feel like I have to scratch at my eyes forever to get the color to impart from my brush. (Same brush.)
For me, the long wear on this alone is worth the increased price tag. At $21, it's $5 dollars more than MAC Fluidline, but it comes in a variety of colors. I've only tried the matte varieties, and not the shimmer ink ones, but I have lots of faith. Bobbi Brown never fails to produce high quality (if a little boring, sometimes) items, and I highly recommend this product!
I think everyone knows what gel eyeliner looks like but I might as well post an example. Please excuse the badly applied falsies in this picture!
As much as I highly recommend this product, there's one thing I don't really use this for, and that's the waterline. For some reason it just doesn't stick to the waterline upon application as well as the Urban Decay liner pencils, but at the same time, the UD 24/7 pencils also smudge on me if I use them to line normally (not water line), but the Bobbi Brown stay put. So I keep one of each in black (or Zero, in UD language) for those purposes.
Run, not walk, to get one of these! I recommend applying them with Smashbox's bent eyeliner brush, or a small angled brush from any brand you like for a thicker line.
Another note---MAC's Blacktrack dried out on me after a few months, but my Bobbi Brown gel liner has stuck with me for over a year without a sign of drying out. Hmm.
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