What can be better than making your eyes more defined and beautiful? Do the winged eyeliner, of course! While the theory is easy, the practice is far more difficult. I’ve been practicing for 15 years already, and still I can’t say that I’m a guru of cat flick eyes. I find it easier to work with pen-style eyeliners, as creamy eyeliners are still difficult for me. But I don’t want to give up, I want to learn to line my eyes beautifully, so I bought the E.L.F Studio Cream Eyeliner. After eight long months of using I’m finally ready to express my opinion about it.
Actually, the E.L.F. Cream Eyeliner is my second creamy eyeliner ever. The first one was by Maybelline, but it dried out too quickly. By the way, at the end of my review, I’ll show you my own life hack about how to prevent this eyeliner from drying out.
I bought it on Iherb, but you can buy it at any drugstore, and the price is friendly. The low cost can be explained by the fact that the brand is American but actually they make their products in China.
When I started to test this product, once more I became sure that the China quality isn’t very good.
- Where to buy: Iherb, or any other drugstore
- Price: $3
- Weight: 1.1 ounces
- Made in USA/China
I don’t have the packaging the product was in now, so alas I can’t show you it. The jar with the eyeliner was packed in a cardboard box with a transparent window to see the product through. There was also a small brush included.
The jar itself is made of glass. It has a square shape and black plastic cap. To this very moment, I’ve already used a lot, but still there’s plenty of the product remains. The expiration date is within 3 months after opening. But, mine has been opened for 8 entire months already, thanks to my life hack of storage.
I want to stop your attention on the included brush. I like thin lines, but this brush draws them thick and not neat. The brush is only 3 inches long and there are a lot of densely packed bristles. I don’t use it, as I find it too thick. I don’t use it even to shape my eyebrows, not to mention the wings. I presume that there will be some people who will love this brush, but only those who love thick winged eyeliner.
I opted for mine in the black color, as I love classics you know. There’s also a coffee color in the collection. The product is really creamy, soft and not dry at all. The brush takes it fine and smoothly. In the jar, it looks glossy, but it becomes matte on the skin. It’s unscented. I’d like to say that the color isn’t black, for me it’s greyish-black.
The color payoff is good and the line is easy to draw, but it can look patchy and not opaque. It happens from time to time that I don't apply enough of the product to the brush and I can’t finish my line with what I applied. And I don’t know the reason for that: maybe the product dries too quickly, or maybe the lack of pigmentation here plays the role.
The product is buildable. So you can always get a brighter effect if required. But be careful and don’t apply too much, as you can easily end up with clumpy lines, since the first layers have already dried, and the following just take them off from your skin. With this eyeliner you’ll never get the blackest black color, just black or deep intense grey, that’s all.
The product turned out extremely long lasting, hence there are some advantages and disadvantages as well. As for advantages: you can be sure that your eyeliner will stay in place, even if you touch it, or get caught in the rain. But the huge disadvantage is that it’ll be challenging to remove it from your eyes. Removing this product may take up to the same amount of time as learning how to do beautiful lines. Sometimes I even think that drawing it is much easier than removing it. Even hot water can’t do anything with the line I drew with this product.
This very moment I have three different micellar waters on my beauty table: none of them can remove it from my eyes. Only if I rub them too hard till reddening (which isn’t good) I can get it off a bit. In the photo below I soaked a cotton pad with micellar water and rubbed it for quite a long time.
If I can’t remove it from my hand, then can you imagine what this will do to my eyes. But all this comes only to dried lines. When it’s still fresh you can even correct the mishaps of your lines with a cotton swab, though still pressing hard. Sometimes I even get my eyelids red and with black stains.
The best product to remove this eyeliner by E.L.F. is to use the cleansing oil. But even my cleansing oil still leaves some pigment on my skin. I remove it the following way: rub lightly with the cleansing oil and then with micellar water. By the way, the swatches made on my hand were much more difficult to remove. On my eyes, if I applied the liner in one layer, sometimes only the cleaning oil is more than enough.
Use:
I can’t say that I’m a guru of winged eyeliner, but I’m pretty experienced. I often face the problem that I can't apply the eyeliner evenly on the first try. But this comes only to cream eyeliner, as pen-styled are way easier to work with.
To apply this eyeliner I use the special brush by Real Techniques. But sometimes (if I forgot to wash it the day before) I have to use the convex shaped one. I don’t like it, as well as the included slanted brush, because of stated above reasons.
I don’t want to teach you how to do your eyeliner (as I also need a good teacher), but I find that the easiest way is to draw dots on your eyelids. All you'll need to do then is just dip your brush in the jar again and connect the dots together. If you don’t like the intensity of the color the first time, don’t hesitate and apply one more.
My biggest problem is drawing the wings. I can’t draw them the same on both eyes. Sometimes I get the wrong angle or length of the wing, uhhh. And don’t forget that it isn’t easy to remove it, so yeah, this is a problem for me.
To draw more or less beautiful lines I stretch my skin in the corners of the eyes and do the line under 45 degrees. Then I connect the wing with the beginning of my line.
Please don’t laugh at the photos, as in real life no one peeps into the angles and length of my eyeliner, and I find that they look quite decent. In the photo below I applied two layers of the eyeliner. As for the wing, here it was difficult to transform the product from the brush onto my skin. In a word, if you apply the product from the jar straight onto your skin, it’s too fresh and applies too thick and untidy.
While application, the liner doesn’t smudge or transform on the eyelid, it dries on my skin really quickly. During the day it looks fresh, as though just applied, even if I applied it at 6am and wash it off at 11pm.
I want to tell you about the way I store this product. I remind you that the manufacturer promises only three months of good quality product after opening. But seriously, who can ever use it up within three months? Not even the busiest make-up artist, I think. Everything is very simple: all you need is a piece of shrink wrap which you need to wrap the jar with and tightly close the top cap.
This is how it looks:
I store all my brow pomades this way too.
This eyeliner is very comfortable to wear. It doesn’t tighten my eyelid, doesn’t dry my skin or provokes allergies. It’s very economical. There are 0.17 oz and I haven’t used a third yet for the eighth month of using. If you need the extremely long-lasting cream eyeliner, then opt for E.L.F. and you’ll never regret it. It will live through the pouring rain, snow and everything.
Overall:
Advantages:
- affordable price
- bid size
- budge-proof
- long lasting
- unscented
Disadvantages:
- dries out too quickly
- difficult to remove from the skin
- manufacturer's claim of expiration date within 3 months after opening
- can look patchy and not opaque on the lids
- difficult to correct if mistaken
When testing this product I understood that I made a mistake when I bought it to learn to draw beautiful and neat cat flick eyes. This very product won’t forgive you if your hands are shaky and your lack of skills. To use the cream eyeliner you need to know the technique and be experienced on pen-style eyeliners.
I recommend this product to those who don’t wear liner very often, or for those who have plenty of time in their disposal to learn. And of course to those who are gurus and can make wonders with any creamy liner.
My subjective rate is 3 stars. I won’t buy it again and make a comeback to my trusty pen-style eyeliners.
