Tag: Eyeliner

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Tom Ford's $58 Liquid Eyeliner Is Absolutely Worth the Money


No hate on Dry January, but why does the New Year have to be all about self-deprivation? After months of spending our time, energy, and money on everyone else, we’re ready to treat ourselves. Welcome to our series To Me, From Me.

I’ve always been a sucker for eyeliner. When I first started wearing makeup, I didn’t get the memo on any other eye products. Mascara? Can’t tell a difference. Eyelash curler? Torture device designed for ants. Eyeshadow? Too complicated.

I got everything I wanted out of eyeliner, like easy definition, a little drama, and a whole lot of look. By high school, my signature makeup was a 10-minute application of the following: emerald-green liquid liner from the inner corners to the center, blue liquid liner from the center to a slight wing, and a healthy sweep of silver glitter liner over both. It looked great with my Catholic school uniform. (In my defense, this was 2004, the same year Britney Spears released Toxic—so, really, I’m just a product of my environment.)

Now, as an adult, I know better. So while I’ll still mess with a cobalt wing, my daily go-to is black liquid liner—specifically, Tom Ford’s Eye Defining Pen. If I ever have to testify for anything, they’d have to swear me into the proceedings with my right hand on this thing. It’s a dual-ended liquid liner; one end has a shorter, finer stroke, like a calligraphy pen, while the other is a longer brush. I use both ends indiscriminately (whichever cap I happen to pop off first) and the result is always good.

First, it deposits so much ink that there’s never any skipping or uneven spots that force you to double up on applications. And the pigment itself dries down to this rich, satin-y black that looks luxurious and won’t budge, even if your eyelids are oily (a real thing, folks). The color is so impactful that with a single sweep, you don’t need any other eye makeup. To be fair: It is high-maintenance, since it’s so pigmented that you have to wait a few seconds for it to dry before blinking. But hey, so am I.

What I used to achieve in three separate liners, I can now get in one. It makes all the difference between looking like I just woke up and looking like I’ve been awake for hours and, in that time, have gone for a run, showered, and enjoyed a breakfast date with my husband, Dev Patel. It makes me look and feel…ready. For the day. For anything.

And the best part? That $58 isn’t going to waste, because this won’t dry out for years. (Years!) I’ve been using the same pen since 2014, and only now is the ink starting to look half-hearted. And when I can’t get any more out of it? No sweat: I’ll put all the money I’m not spending on other makeup towards it. For me, it’s a worthy tradeoff.

Tom Ford Eye Defining Pen, $58, sephora.com



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This Makeup Eraser Pen Makes Getting Perfect Eyeliner So Much Easier


There’s a special place in my heart for fun, cheap eyeliner markers. Back in the day—pre-Stila and Kat Von D—I could only find bright eyeliner colors in beauty supply stores. Even now that I’ve got options (and access), I can’t really help myself when walking past Sally Beauty. It doesn’t help that I’m eyeshadow illiterate. A crease cut alludes me, but a cat eye is my jam. There’s an obvious downside to cheap eyeliner pens though: most of them are really smudgy. Budge-proof liner comes with a price that I’d rather not pay. Instead, I’ve mastered the art of the touch-up.

Makeup wipes were my go-to for years, but they can be irritating, especially if they get in your eyes, and you almost always lose a layer of foundation or hard-earned highlight when you go the wipe route. Makeup remover swabs are great if you have space in your purse for a box of them, but I’ve found that even the best ones require a bit too much rubbing. This fall, I found a third option that beats out both wipes and fancy Q-tips and works so well that I’ve been rolling in compliments on my “perfect” cat-eye abilities. While it’s nice that people think I’m extra-skilled with eyeliner, the truth is I’m not. I just keep a stash of Lashfood’s Chamomile Makeup Erasers in my makeup bags, totes, and purses.

Here’s how it works: the tip of the pen is made of charcoal. If you’ve ever worn a charcoal face mask you already know it has an uncanny ability to suck up dirt, and the same goes for this little makeup eraser. The formula inside the pen contains a lot of the same ingredients as the hardest working makeup wipes, but it’s infinitely easier to use. It’s more precise, there’s less waste, less mess, and doesn’t leave my eyes feeling irritated thanks to an infusion of chamomile.

It’s also great for when your lipstick feathers or migrates onto your chin after lunch and helps tone down brows if you go too hard when filling them in. It works just as well on bright colors as deep, dark pigments, and while it’s only available on the Lashfood website, for now, it’s well worth the $18 (think about it, that’s like three cheap eyeliners). The best part, honestly, is that these little pens fit right into my life, which is the whole point of beauty tools: they should make makeup easier and let you do you with minimal hassle. With this eraser, consider that mission accomplished.

Lashfood Chamomile Makeup Eraser Pen, $18, lashfood.com

Related Stories
–I Tried Eyeliner Stacking, and I’m Never Going Back
–This Dental Floss Eyeliner Trick Will Give You a Perfect Line Every Time
–11 Mistakes Holding You Back From a Perfect Cat Eye



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Health

This $3 Eyeliner Is So Precise I Get a Perfect Cat Eye in One Flick


I started chasing the illusive upturned cat eye in middle school. Back then, I used a 99-cent eyeliner pencil, warmed up by my mom’s hairdryer, but I lacked the fine motor skills to pull it off. As makeup evolved so did my technique and I leveled up to liquid liner, gel liners, and eyeliner pens. In college, felt-tip eyeliner markers became my go-to product. I’ve still got a callous on my right ring finger from all the writing I do by hand so I like an eyeliner that I can hold like a pencil. I always wind up over or under-compensating liquid liners that come in other shapes, but there’s a definite downside to my preference.

In my experience, felt-tipped marker eyeliners leak more often and dry out more quickly than their non-pen-shaped counterparts. Still, that’s a price I’m willing to pay for the kind of control I like to have and I’ve gotten used to keeping a bag of cotton balls and a bottle of makeup remover on hand every morning while I put on my makeup. But that necessity evaporated about a month ago when I was doing some field research for work (and by field research, I mean poking around in a beauty supply store and filling up a basket with incredibly inexpensive makeup). My under $20 haul included two game-changing eyeliner markers from NK Makeup. I’ve been using them since that day and I refuse to go back to the smeary, unevenly lined life I lived before.

Say hello to NK’s Microfine Artliner. This insanely affordable brand makes a ton of quality products, but this eyeliner is hands-down my favorite. I was drawn to it during my research trip because they’re so darn tiny. (I’m very charmed by all things miniature. It’s probably why I own a corgi.) The felt tip point is as precise as the ultra-fine ball point pens I horde, but unlike other very fine eyeliners I’ve tested, these pens don’t bleed or smudge. They glide on smoothly without snagging your delicate eyelid skin. As we all know, snagged, delicate eyelid skin is the makeup application equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard: really, really bad.

The first time I used it, everything went incredibly well: smooth, consistent, and snag-free, but I didn’t expect too much. The pens are so little (and cute!) that it was hard to imagine they could contain enough product to last very long. While I don’t burn through as much eyeliner as I did in my sullen, Victorian novel reading days (I called my beauty look in college “elevated goth,” but it wasn’t all that elevated), I still like to apply multiple coats every day. But I’d been using the same Artliner pen every day for two weeks when the photos here were shot and it worked just as well as on day one. (You can tell because the oils from my hands have started to smear the eyeliner’s label. This happens to all my marker-style eyeliners and if you know a way to prevent it, please DM me.)

To be honest, the consistent smoothness of these eyeliner markers took some getting used to. Even expensive eyeliners tend to lose steam at exactly the moment when you need them to be most precise. If you’ve been liquid lining your eyes for as long as I have, you’ve probably picked up some bad habits from overcompensating for an unsteady or unpredictable eyeliner like pressing down too hard or pausing to let a sub par eyeliner leak out a little more pigment. Since these markers maintain a steady flow of smudge-proof color, you don’t have to exert much pressure. It took me a few tries to get the technique just right, but now that I’ve mastered the delicate hand, I literally can’t get close to a cat eye with any other product.

These little powerhouse markers have officially ruined me for all other eyeliners. I’ve been using the same expensive marker for years and while it works just fine, I can’t really get down with spending $20 on a product that isn’t effective 100 percent of the time and doesn’t come in as many colors as my new favorite does. (I love a simple black cat eye, but a girl needs options.) That said, it’s a rare and wonderful thing to find a product that does so much and only costs $3—and that’s rounded! Once it happens, you have to lock it down and never look back, so I’m stocking up on these eyeliners the same way I horde my favorite ball point pens—with an option to stash everywhere I need.

NK Makeup Microfine Artliner, $2.99, nicka.com

Related Stories:
–Yes, You Can Wear Colorful Eyeliner
–I Tried Eyeliner Stacking, and I’m Never Going Back
–9 Life-Changing Eyeliner Tricks Every Woman Should Know



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