Review | bareMinerals Lasting Line Long-Wearing Eyeliner in Forever Brandy

Lasting Line Long-Wearing Eyeliner in Forever Brandy c/o bareMinerals - £14*

I've always been a long time lover of eyeliner and until recently I thought nothing could be better than super pigmented, black liquid liner. To me it was a look that could go with absolutely everything but recently, on days where I've been wearing a lighter, fresher make-up look, I've been feeling a little disappointed and unsatisfied every time I add my trusty liquid liner to my eyes. Maybe it's because I'm feeling inspired by the many 'no make-up' make-up looks that are dominating my Pinterest feed but liquid liner is just too harsh for my minimal make-up days. So, just as I was on the hunt for an alternative liner, bareMinerals kindly sent me their Lasting Line eyeliner in Forever Brandy to try out.

Forever Brandy is a beautiful brown/black shade with a hint of purple that really brings out the green in my eyes and adds a little warmth to the liner. The swatch above, and the colour of the liner itself, really doesn't reflect how pretty this liner is as the muted purple undertones only really appear when I add this to my eyes. It's beautifully subtle and the mixture of black, brown and purple is really flattering and helps me eyes to pop. The liner has the creamiest texture and it glides along the lids so smoothly, reminding me a lot of the Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof eyeliner but I find the bareMinerals Lasting Line eyeliner easier to smudge.

I prefer to create a light line across the top of my lids, smudging it in my lashes and creating a small, pointed finish to the line by using the angled smudge tip. The liner also looks lovely underneath the bottom lashes but I find it doesn't stay on my waterline very well although not many liners do and this is something I've always had trouble with even with the Stila liner! Maybe I have very watery eyes? Who knows? In every other form of application I find this eyeliner lasts all day: it doesn't smudge on my lids or under my bottom lashes and I don't have to worry about reapplication during the day.

The design of the product is something I'm a huge fan of, the liner itself feels light and smooth in my hand and the twist-up pencil makes blunt eyeliner a thing of the past. The smudge tip on the other end of the liner makes smoky eyes really easy and if you pop this out it reveals a little sharpener for times when you want a precise, fine line (and it's also really tiny and cute!) The liner contains 0.35g / 0.012 oz of product which, when I've looked at the rest of my eyeliners, seems to be standard eyeliner size and it retails for £14.

The bareMinerals Lasting Line Long-Wearing Eyeliners come in a variety of colours that are all wearable and beautiful. As well as a black liner and a variety of brown liners they also have some really pretty coloured liners. I currently have my eye on Infinite Sage, a gorgeous Olive shade, and Nonstop Navy which contains tiny little pieces of glitter!

Have you tried the bareMinerals Lasting Line Long-Wearing Eyeliners? Let me know your favourite eyeliner in the comments below!

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Essence Superfine Eyeliner Pen

Essence Superfine Eyeliner Pen - £2.50

If there's a part of my daily make-up routine I simply can't skip, it has to be liquid eyeliner. I'm constantly on the look out for something to challenge my current favourite, Stila's Stay All Day Liquid Eye Liner, which gives beautiful, precise black lines and it really doesn't budge. But, at £13.00, it can become quite a pricey addition to my make-up bag, especially when I forget to tighten the lid and it ends up drying out fairly quickly! 

When I stumbled across Essence, a super cheap German brand now stocked in Wilkinsons, I couldn't resist picking up the Superfine Eyeliner. The brand actually had about 4 different liquid eyeliners to choose from and a variety of kohl and gel formulas as well. I decided on the Superfine Eyeliner in deep black as the pen nib was rather similar to Stila's Stay All Day liner and I was hopeful that I'd found a dupe.

Although it's not perfect, for £2.50 this eyeliner is rather impressive. If I'm ever short for cash and out of liquid liner I would happily pick this up again! The Superfine Eyeliner's staying power is fantastic and it doesn't budge all day until I take it off with a make-up wipe (rather easily which means no sore eyelids). It also produces a very black line however my main issue is with the application which tends to effect the pigmentation of the liner. Every so often, usually at certain angles, the felt tip nip refuses to release the product and sometimes the line begins to get more transparent and less pigmented in certain areas which I think you might be able to see in the swatch above. The problem would normally be easy to fix by simply going over the line again but, unless you use a kind of dabbing/patting motion to release the product onto an already existing line, which can get messy, the sweeping motion of relining almost removes the original line completely (in a kind of make-up remover effect, I hope I'm making some kind of sense here!).  To fix this problem I usually just add a little bit of black eyeshadow over the lighter, less pigmented areas but for girls in a hurry, or people seeking the perfect liquid liner, this will definitely be a problem which is such a shame as the other elements of the product are really good.

Despite the application issues with the Superfine Eyeliner, I'm still very eager to try out more from products from Essence - especially the other eyeliners! The formulation seems to be brilliant and, hopefully, the other products will avoid the application issues!

What are your favourite Essence products?