The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egypt symbol of protection, health and power. Here, the Eye of Horus is a cosmetic brand that delivers lovely products to make our peepers powerfully beautiful!
The Goddess pencil in Charcoal Obsidian is a charcoal colour with some subtle shimmer. It has a smudging tip on one end, to help create a smokey effect. Their formula is waterproof, smudge proof and long-lasting.
Confession: I cannot go one day without eyeliner. And I mean it. I tried all types: pencils, felt tip pens, gel pots, eyeshadow+slanty brush… you name it, I’ve been there. And I settled for the pen, which is the most practical. For that reason alone, I was more than excited to try the Eyeko Skinny Liquid eyeliner in black.
To start with, I love that the tip is super long. I don’t know why, but I just do. And it is indeed very skinny and precise.
Now, I used this one to the end. Using everyday, it lasted about three months. I mean, the liquid is clearly ending, but the tip remains pretty sharp. It is still going – if I leave it upside down or shake it a bit, it will go back to almost new glory. It is still going but I know it is at the bitter end – it has given me all the signs it wants to retire. And I am re-purchasing. I don’t think I will ever let this one go, as I tried many liquid eyeliner pens and this one is really the best one!
The liquid is smooth and very black. It dries quickly and I cannot remember having any transfer after applying, at any point.
Application is easy, it glides very well with just the right amount – not too dry or too wet. One stroke and you have a solid colour. With any liner, a steady hand is always welcome, but the strong tip really helps. And because the tip is so fine, you can create perfect flicks, with precision. It is also easy to build up to create thicker lines.
Durability is also great. I do use an eyeshadow primer, but this baby stays in place all day and doesn’t smudge – even through my spin class (my best and probably unfairest test to makeup durability!). After 8 hours, it starts to fade, but stays in place. It is easy enough to remove with a good eye makeup remover and rubbing is not required – just wipe gently with the damp cotton wool!
I especially recommend this to those who are new to eyeliner – as mentioned, the tip really helps if you are not that confident with other eyeliners, and you can create delicate lines! actually, there isn’t a single Eyeko product I tried and did not love. Seriously. Eye wizards!
The Skinny Liquid Eyeliner retails from £10 from the Eyeko website and they . At the moment, QVC has a brilliant twin pack for £15 plus p&p – which will come in my Christmas stocking, through “very subtle” hints!
Eyeliner is a part of every makeup I do. A black flick is to be found on my peepers on a daily basis.
The JN Beauty gel eyeliner comes as a pencil. Yes, a pencil – which is very practical. I used the Black Caviar and it glides beautifully, without the need to apply too much pressure, making application quick and easy with one stoke. It is also highly pigmented – it looks super black with a glossy finish.
The eyeliner dries quickly after application so it doesn’t transfer; durability is fantastic – it stays put all day!
As it is a pencil, the tip is not super fine when sharpened, and it goes thick after a few uses. This is a very minor negative for me as durability of the pencil is reduced, as you need to sharpened more often. Having said that, because the durability is so brilliant, you don;t need to re-apply or re-touch, so maybe it balances out. As for my precise flicks, I just need to be careful when doing the it with the sharp pencil and it ends up perfect!
I was very impressed with how quickly I applied my eyeliner perfectly in the morning, the intense effect and also how long it lasted ! This baby will certainly live in my makeup bag!
JN Beauty is a British brand founded in 2011 and you can find the Gel eyeliner pencil in six gorgeous colours on the JN Beauty website.
I mentioned this before, at a product review and also eye make-up look challenges, but I thought it deserved a separate post, as every colour I use, I fall more in love with this!
The metallics are really vivid, and striking with only one stroke (I tend to go for two, as I like to really saturate the colours, especially for pictures!) and they have a fantastic range of colours. Application is great – the brush is thin and easy to use, pretty much fool-proof. I tend to avoid liquid, favouring gel or felt tip pens, but this one really changed my mind – they got it right.
The consistency is fluid enough to apply easily, but not too runny. It also dries very quickly, so no smudges – the precise lines sit exactly where they should be – and stays there.
These liners are an easy way of giving your make-up that extra oomph – a little splash of colour that really makes a look different!
To see some of them in action, check some of my eye make-up look challenge posts where I used a some of the colours on a raspberry/orange (metallic orange/copper – tequila sunrise), festive gold (gold – gilt-y) and this light pink/green (metallic charcoal – black ice).
You can get myface.cosmetics here.
I could not live without make up. Really. I cannot imagine my life without the colour it, literally, brings into my face. Not that I don’t like my clean face; there was a time I had severe acne and yes, and I would never think of leaving the house bare-faced. I think this is the reason I have such a passion for make up; I had to make it work really hard to cover my problematic skin. Today, its main purpose is not to hide, but to enhance my features.
Anyway… I thought I’d share some very basic, day wear eye make up ideas; I wear it to work pretty much everyday. It is usually a variation of what you see here, with different complementary colours, different products, but I tend to stick to this for the daily grind. It is usually a 5-minute job (providing I don’t mess up the eyeliner which I occasionally do).
Super mega staple eye shadows for me are MAC’s Expensive Pink, Nylon, Vex, Carbon, Naked Lunch and Brown Down and a light gold L’Oreal one. I mean, they are amazing, have a good staying power, truly everyday shades you can mix and match, build up or strip down for neutral daywear which will not fight with your lipstick, even if the chosen shade is red (like mine, most days).
I prep my eyes with the e.l.f or the NYX primers. Sometimes, I just brush Vex or Nylon on eyelids and brow bone and apply an eyeliner, across the whole lash line of just under half, for more sultry but at the same time lighter eyes.
I usually wear Vex (an iridescent pale silver, goes fabulously with blues and greens, but also with pinks) or Nylon (a shimmery very pale gold – and this my friend, goes with everything!) as bases, they look great on the brow bone.
Then from the outer corner of the eye and the crease, blending towards the inner corner, I apply the “middle” shade – this could be the golden L’Oreal, Expensive Pink or Smoke ‘n’ Diamonds. Most of the time, I stop there but sometimes, I use a darker shade, if dealing with warm tones, Brown Down (when I use Silver Ring, I don’t add anything darker, it is dark enough!) in the outer part of the crease and the corner, to give a subtle smokey effect.
When lining my upper lid, I sometimes do just 1\3 of the eye, leaving the inner corner clean and bright; sometimes, I do the whole thing, most of the times with a flick at the end – I am really into them now, I think it help flatters my eye shape.
Slap on the mascara on top lashes and eye liner to the water line. Now, depending on my mood (again!), I might do it just a third from the outer corner or the whole line; sometimes I add it to the lower lash line too and smoke with a pencil brush to make it less harsh, but any combination will look good! Promise!
At the moment, my favourite liners are Collection 2000 felt tip pen liner (amazing, and great value), MAC gel liner and Maybelline’s Lasting Drama gel liner, all of which I find easy to apply and long lasting. I love eyeliner, really do.
For the more grungy look coming for A/W12-13, I have been trying a chubby liner, from Miners, it is great for smoking after applying, with a pencil brush, but it smudges quite a lot, and its staying power is rubbish, sadly, as the effect is ace!
For mascara I am currently using Maybelline’s Falsies (one of my favourites).
So, what are your tested, quick day to day eye make up routine? It would be nice to know what works for other people!
This week I am trying something a bit more elaborate. A great friend of mine, Gisele, is doing a make up course in Brazil. She posts her practice eye make up and I decided to choose one and do my own version. I used the similar colours but made some changes and ended up with something a bit more dramatic and less subtle.
I started by applying a primer, then spreaded the gold pigment across the lid. Using a pencil brush, I outlined the shape with the purple shadow, blending the line closer to the inner corner into the gold and filling the shape at the outer corner. I added a couple of shades of purple to give it depth . I then blended the purple into the gold. The pigment was quite thick, so kinda “contaminated” the purple, it goes everywhere, so the purple became less intense! Eyeliner was applied, with an exaggerated flick on the outer as well as in the inner corner, creating a slick line.
TO get to this point everything was really smooth, and quicker than I thought. The final touches, however, took a while. I then applied eyeliner to my water and lower lash line, creating a very long flick, and applied some gold from the inner corner. Finally, I put some supra colour cream to fill the gap between the top and bottom lines flicks. Pigment was added to the brow bone for highlighting.
I had problems with my false eyelashes; this set was a new one I tried, and it was quite cheap, it was quite stiff to mould around the lash line. Plus, I couldn’t find my duo glue and used something else, it didn’t go in properly, so i removed the lashes and took ages looking for my glue. Found it, but my patience was gone. Then lash wouldn’t sit well, and I had to re-touch the liner, and it is a bit thick. So my lash application was far from perfect and I apologise for that, but I couldn’t deal with it anymore.
However, I was pleased with the results, and see many colour combinations working with this one. It is quite exaggerated, and I am not sure I would wear it out anywhere, but I liked the end result it. It was particularly good training defined shapes and lining techniques. And learning to always go for good quality eyelashes – mind you, I have applied those in four friends (I bought one of those packs with ten pairs) and managed to do it beautifully; it is only when applying on myself.
One of the eye make up looks that caught my eye in recent fashion weeks was Anna Sui’s winged blue eyeliner, with a pretty dot on the lower lash line.
So this week I decided to re-create my own version on it, but with a half circle on the centre of the lower lash line, similar to the half sequins used at Givenchy SS12, instead of Anna Sui’s smaller full dot slightly off centre.
In my treasure chest that is the Sephora palette I bought a while back, there are six gel eyeliners, including an electric blue one, so I decided that it was perfect to execute this look.
I prepped my eyes with a primer, dusted with a bit of pigment to give it a glow, used clear sticky tape to work as a stencil so my line would be sharp and precise and voilá – I drew from the inner corner with a brush, as if applying normal eyeliner, but extended it more towards the end of my brows to make it more dramatic.
Then, I built on it, giving thickness on the lid. I took some pictures of it thinner and thicker, and I like them both.
Bearing in mind this took me literally five minutes to achieve on each eye, I think this look is a winner – especially because of its versatility; you can use any colour you want, make the flick shorter and also drop the dot on the lower lash line! If no gel eyeliner is at hand, it can also be achieved by wetting eyeshadow then applying with an angled brush, it will though, be harder to achieve a good coverage and durability, depending on the colour and the eyeshadow. Wet pigments would also work a treat.
Until a couple weeks ago, I had been lining my eyes in three different ways, depending on my mood, time and desired effect: by using eye shadow (MAC Carbon) or gel eyeliner (MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack) and a small angle brush or using an eyeliner (MAC Smoulder eye kohl).
Recently I came across a few products and decided to give them a go – and test which one delivered best results, in terms of ease of application, effect and durability.
The Collection 200o Extreme 24 hour felt tip liner in black really caught my attention – it is unassuming, looks like a normal felt tip and the idea is really good: a pen with which you can draw your eye liner.
Having 24-hour on the label made me a bit nervous – what if I messed up and it was stuck on my face for a whole day? So it took me a couple weeks after buying to try. I was pleasantly surprised with the results; my first application was easy, the pen glides nicely on the eye lid and it is really precise. You can create nice jet black thin lines with it, and a perfect flick.
Other times it was harder, the line wasn’t perfect, but it was easily fixable with a moist cotton bud. After it dries, it really sticks, and removal requires quite a bit of scrubbing! It lasted well, when I returned home after work, it was still present, my eyes looked well lined and it didn’t run, although it was bit faded. I can see it being very useful to fill out the line after applying false eye lashes!
The other product I tried- and loved – is the Maybelline EyeStudio Lasting Drama gel liner, in blackest black. I really like that it comes with a brush, and the combo works really well; the gel is smooth and glides nicely, the little brush is a great size for the make up bag and is hard enough to be good for thin and wider lines, and it really, really lasts. After a whole day at work, including a trip to the gym, the line still looked impeccable! I was very impressed!
The third product I tried is quite similar to the first one: the Elf waterproof eyeliner pen. I felt that, although the tip was finer, thus enabling you to create extremely fine lines, there didn’t seem to be enough ink coming out, it was quite dry, I had to rub it really hard and go over the line again and again losing precision, and the final result was still faded. I took pictures, but re-touched with the Collection 2000 liner to make it proper. A shame, as the Elf product is only £1.50,was really expecting one of those “amazing finds” moments! I didn’t do an “after” shot, as I had another liner over it.
For the time being, I’ve laid off my old ways and I am alternating between two of the new discoveries. I am divided between the Maybelline and the Collection 2000. The first one has amazing staying power, and the second is so easy to apply it is almost ridiculous! However, the Collection 2000 might just edge the Maybelline (£7.99) one for its price: £2.99, which is unbelievable value for this product!
What about you? What is your favourite eye liner?
After much procrastination to commit, I decided to subscribed to some magazines. One of them, Elle, has sent me a Smashbox make up set as a welcoming gift.
I am very sceptical about things that come free – I have been terribly disappointed in the past – so I opened the envelope with an anticipated dissatisfaction.
I would love to say that I was proven wrong and started vehemently believing in free stuff – this is not the case, but I can say I was pleasantly surprised with the goods I received: O-Gloss Gold, Photo Op brightener and Soft Effects Powder Eyeliner, in aubergine.
My favourite one is probably the eyeliner. When I saw the “aubergine” colour, I was a bit annoyed and thought: “typical, they never give you a great staple, like black, for free!”, but it turns out that it is quite dark, and close enough to be worn as an option to black.
For me, the best use was to recycle my eyeliner, I tried it on top of my reliable albeit very tired after a long day at the office, MAC smolder eye kohl and it looked fantastic. In the morning though, when applied on fresh eyes, it was a bit messy, as it is very loose and fine powder, and the line was a bit rough – but maybe I need to get used to the applicator. Once you get it right (it took me a few minutes, a cotton bud and a foundation retouch below the eyes!), it looked ok.
The lipgloss did what it said on the tin – it changed from a guilded gold to a peachy tone and apparently, the peach colour of this intuitive lipgloss adjusts to your skin, giving you the best match for your complexion. Lips looked nice, the colour was good for me, I really like the golden sheen and the consistency and taste of the lipgloss were alright.
As for the highlighter, it was satisfactory, but not better than my usual Benefit High Beam or my YSL Touché Eclat.
All in all, I can say that I probably wouldn’t buy them. Maybe I could give the eyeliner a go but the £17 price tag for the duo (the black is paired with the aubergine), makes me think if it is really worth it. Good to try new brands and products though, and what I will probably do is use its applicator with other eyeshadows, as quite like the idea behind it, and see how it goes!
So Many Lovely Things 