Liquid Liner Reviews

Hi Guys~ 

I've been wanting to do this review for ages because I absolutely cannot live without eye liner. It's my one thing that I must wear if I leave the house (ok, fine not always... but most of the time!). I've used all the different types there is to use: Liquid, gel, pencil and crayon. I must say I hate the latter two and have never found one that did not smudge on me... I'm also not a huge fan of tightening my water line or drawing too much eye liner on the bottom of my eye. so liquid liner is perfect for me. 

In the past, Bobbi Brown's gel liner was my holy grail for liner, but as I grew more and more lazy, I couldnt be bothered using a brush - so I slowly moved away from gel. Today's review is to show you guys which of the following liquid liners are proven (for my eyes) to not smudge or smear.

Starting from the top we have Motives Luxe Precision Eye Liner ($16.95), then Lancome Artliner ($45), Essence super fine liner($5) and Tony Moly Long Kinny Gel Liner (19.95). 

Let's get started. I've done a few swatches below to show you how they appear after ONE application. As you cansee the Motives and Tony Moly are very pigmented, while the other two come short. You do have to excuse Lancome's Artliner as it's a little old so the colour might have been a bit darker when it was new. 

Next we have the smudge test. I tend to rub each liner a about 3-4 times and quite hard for you to see the resistance of each liner. Poor Lancome just did not hold up. Although I must admit that none of these liners say "smudge proof" on them. Motives and Tony Moly have held on quite well. I only bought the Essence because I thought it would be fun to do comparisons between lower end, mid and high end brands.

I don't go swimming but sometimes we all have the unexpected tears... or if you're like me, I use a lot of eye drops, you'd want your eye liner to be semi-water proof. These aren't meant to be waterproof but I've taken some water and rubbed it over the liner about 2 times. Lancome has disappeared and Essence actually left a very faint liner which you can't see on the photo. Now this wouldn't be a problem for those ladies who dislike using an oil based make-up remover but I'd much prefer it if my liner could last through a storm.

And then the oil test - I simply put a cotton pad over my hand and removed it. Holy crap, the motives liner still stayed on. I suppose it could be a bit annoying if you wanted to remove everything and the liner still stuck behind a bit. But it came off after I rubbed it gently.

Conclusion is that I would love to buy more Motives & Tony Moly liners in future. Too bad Tony Moly's Kinny liner is so hard to find! I grabbed mine in Sydney but I can't find it anywhere in Melbourne. Those who live in South Africa can order Motives online and Tony Moly through Ebay (I'm not too sure how legit those on Ebay would be but feel free to try)

Cathie <3