Review: MAX FACTOR Liquid Effect Pencil Eye Liner

Product Description:
The new MAX FACTOR Liquid Effect Pencil Eye Liner is a modern day eye liner with an edge; incorporating the easy application of an eye pencil and the smooth and lasting effects of a liquid eye liner. You can effortlessly create any number of looks from the striking shades of Lilac, green, purple, silver, brown and black, whether you’re going for something simple, exaggerated or bold.

As one of the items in the MAX FACTOR Eye Effects Collection, the MAX FACTOR Liquid Eye Effect Pencil Eye Liner will be available in store from July 2011.

(RSP: RM38)

I was given a chance to review this eyeliner from Max Factor by Yuberactive. To read others review regarding this product, click here.

Yuberactive sent me the eyeliner in Violet Voltage, a lovely purple shade. At first, I was excited by the product's name 'Liquid Effect Pencil Eye Liner'. I was expecting a pencil eyeliner with opaque and crisp application of liquid eyeliner, but I should now better not to expect too much.

As you can see from the swatch above, the eyeliner is not really opaque even after few layers. The thickest line is the eyeliner smudged with the smudger tip, but it works more like an eraser than a smudger. I think could be because the smudger made of rubbery material instead of something spongy. 

Applying the eyeliner on my lid can be a frustrating business, no matter what I did, it won't apply evenly. Apply it thinly, it looks too sheer. Apply it moderately, it looks uneven. Apply it thickly, it starts to clumps. Yes, the liner become sort of concentrated to some area if it applies in thicker layer. So I gave up and accept the fact in won't applied even on the lid.

How long lasting is it? Well, on my oily lids, it's pretty good. It could last for more than 4-5 hours on good weather, but it will transfer or smudge after 3 hours. Eye primer or eyeliner coat helps minimised the problem.

On hot weather, it smudged badly and at one occasion, the eyeliner color actually bleed, making me look like abuse victim (or like Ashley said, 'eye lid surgery went bad'). LOL. The violet color seeps to the crease and the eyeliner left with black-blue color.

Overall, for me, this eyeliner is just decent. I think it would work better for those with normal or dry lid, and less hot and humid weather could also helps. I keep this eyeliner for daily used and for special occasion, I stick with cream eyeliner.

The product was sent for reviewing purpose by Yuberactive, this however does not affect my view of the product.

All that is purple-ish: Item 1 - ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner (Purple)

I noticed I'm slowing down with blogging lately. The thing is, I started to go to gym and play volleyball, and that takes a lot of energy. Doing a look or writing a review takes a lot of energy and time. So until my body get used with the abused, I need to update this blog with something more lighthearted and simpler. I'm gonna start a series called "All that is *insert colour*". Basically, I'm gonna collect my stuffs that is in a particular group of color, one item for each day. In the post, I'm gonna write a short review or simply thoughts that I have about the item. I'm gonna start the series with the colour purple.

ELF product can be a hit or miss, this one in particular is a hit for me. The purple colour is opaque and the eyeliner is easy to apply. I usually prefer to bring this in my travel bag since it is the least fussy among my cream eyeliner.
The brush that comes with the eyeliner actually not bad all, short and tiny, perfect for travelling or tiny makeup bag.

First Impression: Stage Cosmetics Eye Liner in Teal Theater 07

• I can't remember the full price. Will update later. Discounted price, RM12.
• Packaging is decent. Typical pencil liner.
  
• Waxy consistency. A little hard. But works well with small stroke.
• Once set, it's waterproof and smudge proof. This liner survive thunderstorm!
• To smudge it, I need to rub really really hard. And it only smudge very lil
• Nice color variation.
  

• The shade leaning toward dark green than teal.
• Lovely green shade with silver sparkle.
  

Pretty eyeliner~

DIY: Reviving Dried Up Cream Eyeliner.

Gel and cream eyeliner for me is one of the best makeup product for eyelining. Pencil liner, regardless of quality smudge on me, liquid eyeliner? I wish I have steady hands and I always managed to transfer the liner to my upper lid. So gel/cream liner is the only thing that works for me.

Typical gel/cream eyeliner packaged in jar with very large opening. The opening cause moisture in the product evaporated and we're left with dried up liner. Any gel or cream eyeliner will dried up, it's just matter of time. Even MAC paint pot dried up in its glass jar. There are even cases when the eyeliner arrived to the customer dried up (this happens a lot with Coastal Scents gel liner)

There are few tips on preventing gel/cream eyeliner from drying up

1. Keep in glass jar. I don't really know why, but I keep hearing people talking about how gel or cream product in glass jar didn't dried up as fast as the one in plastic jar.
2. Cap the jar tightly.
3. Store it upside-down.

At times, even with all those prevention measures, the eyeliner still drying up. That's what happened to my ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner. I had it since June/July and boy, it actually shrink significantly since it starts drying up. The eyeliner become harder and harder, and I had to swirl my brush and waste so many product to make it soft enough to line my eyes. I'm not willing to throw it away. So I take out some and mix it baby oil, it become creamy again, but it smudge terribly. I wanted to try using MAC Fix+, but then I have to go out and buy one.

And then, one day, an awesome makeup guru uploaded a video in YouTube and it's the very video that I need to revive my eyeliner! Koren aka EnKoreMakeup come up with a way to revive gel eyeliner, so I thought it might work for cream eyeliner too. Go and watch the video, you'll see what a genius Koren is :) In the video, he explains what actually happen, how to solve the problem and share some useful tips.


After I watched the video, I was too excited to try it, but I don't have any product that he actually used in the video. So, I have to postpone it. Luckily, I thought of using Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel. Why? Because it contains a few different silicone derivative, glycerine and it's in gel form. Everything that I need to revive my liner in one product!

Number referring to picture below:

1. Dried up cream liner - can you see how it shrinks away from the jar wall. It's hard and I have to really swirl my brush to soften it up.
2. I add about 4 pumps of Clinique DDM Gel [pic 4]. And the I mix the DDM Gel and liner and heat it up hair dryer.
3. It would turn out to something like this.

If you didn't heat the mixture long enough, the liner will smudge/transfer [pic 5]. So, heat it up a bit longer (make sure it doesn't boil), until the liner melt and mix nicely with the DDM Gel. In pic 6, you can see no smudging and the liner pigmentation is still good.

I had tried my eyeliner few times after I revived it. It works well, just like when I first started using it. The pigmentation is still good, it doesn't smudge and long lasting.

Hooray for Koren! Hooray for revived eyeliner! Hooray!!!

Review: ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner in Black

Sometimes, price of a product does not reflects the quality that it brings, and this is so true when it comes to this $3 cream eyeliner from ELF Studio line.

It come in a very chic packaging for its price and there a hell lot of product in the pot, 4.7gram. I'm very pleased with that. I'd check back the ELF website few days ago and I found out that they started to sell the eyeliner with an eyeliner brush. What a steal, hopefully the back-up I recently bought comes with the brush.
I've been using this product almost everyday since the day I got it for almost a month. Having oily hooded eyelid often make me abandoned lining my eyes since it gonna smudge like crazy immediately after I put it on. However, ELF cream eyeliner stays put on my lids with minor creasing, transfer and fading for up to 12 hours. Sometimes, I sleep w/o removing my eye makeup, and the eyeliner does smudge, but most of it stays in place. I'm so amazed how long wearing this product is.

Aside for being long wearing, the product is very pigmented and creamy. It is so easy to apply and dry almost immediately. That's a big plus for hooded eyelid.

I noticed that after a month of use, the product starts to dry up in the pot, I could pretty much see gap appearing between the product and the wall of the pot. I think if it too dry for use, few spray of MAC Fix+ could fix the problem. For the mean time, I'm gonna keep the pot upside down to minimize liquid evaporation from the pot.

Considering the drying-up problem, I could give 4/5 for the eyeliner, but putting it to perspective, considering how inexpensive it is, this eyeliner deserve 5/5

Anyway, I think this is my HG eyeliner.