Regrets #4: Eyes

Hello again readers!

The last installment of my regrets series! Also my biggest. Saved the best (worst) for last, as some of these were downright abysmal. 

Jordana FabuLiner Bold:
I really liked the other Jordana Fabuliners – they're really juicy, easy-to-apply felt tip eyeliner pens that make quick eyeliner looks without too much hassle. This just didn't stand with the others. The eyeliner was pretty sheer, requiring multiple layers of liner to look remotely black instead of charcoal. This also has a huge tip, which is great for bold looks, but when you're like me with a shaky hand situation, a trendy, fashionable bold eyeliner look can look more like raccoon eyes, or like I'm joining the Black Parade when trying to make the eyes even. The pigmentation wasn't there, and I wasn't in love with the end result.

Elf Essential Eyelid Primer – Pearl:
Thought I'd give this a go. For the longest time, the ELF Essential Eyelid Primer was my go-to eye primer (before discovering a trove of gems out there that work better for my oily lids!). This version, just sucked. It's supposed to add a nice, luminous base that pairs well with shimmery and glittery shadows. However, it doesn't hold pigment as well as the original. It's a bit too sheer to really add any extra oomph to shadows, and then it fades quickly. If you have oily lids like me, then it'll end up creasing too, which I found disappointing.

L.A.Colors Liquid Eyeliner – Navy:

The most gorgeous blue eyeliner ever, and it's Satan's tears in a bottle. I applied this, fell in love with the color, and then quickly burst into tears of my own. This product STUNG my eyes so bad, and they wouldn't stop tearing up no matter what I did. I tried to wear it again, with tight-lining my lash line and blending it onto my lid a little bit, and then applying this a little bit above my lashes, but the formula of this liner was so watery, it ended up dripping down into my eyes anyway. What a shame, I really wanted to like this one.

ELF Precision Liquid Liner:

This liner had the same issue as the L.A. Colors liner did – it burned my eyes! I've seen a few people rave about this liner, and wanted to try it out myself. You can never have too many good black ones. Unfortunately, this one wasn't a good liner, or even a decent one. It went on really nicely, but then would sting my eyes  within thirty seconds of application. Not worth it.

Maybelline Master Duo Liquid Liner – Navy Gleam:
This one might have worked, if it was pigmented. I would shake, and shake, and shake this product and no matter what I did it was still a sheer, watered-down navy. I tried adding multiple layers, but that just looked messy. To top it off, it took forever to set, and with having watery oily eyes, it was just a recipe for disaster.

Milani Crystal Eyes – Glamorously Glittering:
This was a good idea in concept. A liquid glitter that you can just pat onto the lid, or use as a bit of a liner topper. I really wanted to see how it did. Just wasn't for me though. Patting it on my lid would lift up eyeshadow that I already applied. Using it as a liner topper just, wasn't as glamorous as I expected, since it needed many coats to look somewhat intentional and even, and it would still look streaky. I'm not sure how someone would use this to be honest, it just isn't practical.

Jordana Pencil Eyeliner – White:
This may just be the worst pencil eyeliner I have ever had the displeasure to use. Almost no pigmentation whatsoever (and what little pigmentation there was, looked like a faded white liner, not a liner that was freshly applied) and the product itself is very hard. To get any payoff, I would have to press down HARD with the product, and when you're working around the eye area, you want to be as delicate as you can. I tried it once, and never touched it again.

NYC High Definition Mascara:
I thought I'd try this mascara, and was just underwhelmed. It was really wet and messy, getting all over my eyelids and smearing like crazy no matter how careful I was with it. Then within a few hours it would start crumbling off and leave mascara flakes all over my cheeks.

Maybelline Colossal Mascara:

At first I really liked this mascara. It applied well, gave my lashes a lot of length, and just the right amount of volume for my liking. But then it had the dreaded crumbling effect, leaving flakes all over the place. Disappointment.

ELF Glitter Mascara – Black Glitter:

I thought this was an eyeliner when I bought it to be honest (I really should read closer sometimes!) so it wasn't until I pulled the wand out that I discovered that it was indeed a mascara instead. The wand is so strange, like a screwdriver instead of traditional bristles. I tried it as both a mascara, and as an eyeliner, with the same effect – it dried like cement. As a liner, it came off in chunks. As a mascara, it clumps the lashes together to make sharp spikes – and you can't even see the glitter!

Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara:
This formula was just not for me. It was super wet, super messy, and even though my lashes looked really pretty after initial application, it soon crumbled and flaked. How sad, I know so many people really get along with this one, and I wanted to like it too.

Make Up For Ever Smokey Extravagant Mascara:
This is a mascara that came in the 2014 Sephora Birthday duo (just goes to show you how long I've held onto products I hated ...). The brush is HUGE, like a large Christmas tree just shoved into the tube, making it really difficult to apply mascara for me. I can't move my hand really well in certain angles, so unless I use my left hand (which is a disaster in the making) I can't get the mascara to work for me. I would have just chalked it up to user error, but then again this one also had the crumbling flakes all over my face. Suffice to say I didn't buy the full-size.

Revlon Diamond Dust – Night Sky:

This shadow looked beautiful, but when I applied it, the shadow was sheer, and all that really showed was the glitter. This was a good shadow to apply on top of a makeup look for extra glam, but I'm not someone that enjoys a lot of glitter, so it's useless to me.

NYC Duo – NYC Times:

No pigmentation at all. No matter how much I scrapped and tried to get product onto the skin, nothing came up. It's better off as play makeup for children.

Sally Girl Eyeshadow Single – Burgundy:

The pigmentation left much to be desired, but the real issue was that when I would go to blend the shadow, it would blend away completely! It wiped away far too easily, and left nothing behind at all. It's a real shame, because I've used a couple other shades from this range, and it just didn't stand up to the plate like the others.

RueBeaute! Rue 21 Eyeshadow:

This one was odd. It had pigmentation, but applying it was so strange. Blending it out made the color change from a taupe shade, to more of a straight up grey. I tried using it as a transition shade, and it made any shadow I paired with it look blotchy and not blended. It was an odd experience, and one that isn't worth repeating.

Forever21 Love and Beauty Eyeshadow – Dark Blue:

The only way to get this product to show, is to really build up the color and use it wet. That caused a hard layer to form on top of the powder, rendering it useless. I think I used this eyeshadow once, and that was apparently once too many.

Thanks for reading!