Anger Burger

This is almost as off-subject as I can get, but I sometimes I miss out on the kind of information that I wish I had and I think, I should tell someone about this.  And you are that someone!

Okay, so, eyeliner.  I kind of can’t wear eyeliner, and I’m unsure why.  Is it because I sweat?  I’m not terribly greasy, naturally, but perhaps because I wear sunblock on my face?  By whatever mechanism, the eyeliner just rubs back off again, sometimes mysteriously disappearing over the day, but most times by smearing into my surrounding eye-sockets so that I look like a ghoul.  Awesome if I were goth.  Less awesome in that I am not.

I shopped around on the internet, and everyone gushed about this eyeliner by Urban Decay called “24/7″.  Lasts forever!  Totally waterproof!  Hard to even get back off again!  Perfect, I thought, and I bought a stick.  And guess what?  It smeared into my eye sockets in record time.  Piece of shit.

Now, my friend Leesa taught me that the easiest, cheapest eyeliner is to buy a cheap angled art brush and with a little water, make a paste with some budget eyeshadow in the color you desire.  It’s not waterproof nor especially long-lasting, but it’s about the same as any stick eyeliner on the market and you’re only in about $10 for a single color (and, depending on the brand, a new color can be had for as little as $3).  Since this method didn’t age any better than another, I never really stuck with it.

The dollar is to demonstrate size, not price – you’ll need 19 more to pay for it.

Until I read about a product called “Eye Seal” by Make Up For Ever. Dangerously¹ bottled in an eye-dropper,the idea is that you mix a little with your dry eye shadow and behold, an impenetrable eyeliner product.  Or so they say.  Let’s do a test!

On the left we have Urban Decay’s bullshit “24/7″ eyeliner, and on the left right we have a drop of “Eye Seal” mixed with a cheap-ass Maybelline black eyeshadow.  The blobby part right where the arrow is pointing was where I dropped the brush on my hand right before taking the photo, so try and ignore that bit.

What happened here?  I rubbed my finger across the top half of both lines for oh, maybe five or six passes?  Yes, I was rubbing pretty hard, but you can see what a clear difference this is — the “Eye Seal” stuff hasn’t budged.  Not even an atom.  And the “24/7″?  Obliterated.

Turns out that “Eye Seal” is the real deal.  Now, it’s a little tricky to work with, only because it is in essence a shellac – it dries very fast and has to be scrubbed out of your brush with soap and water immediately.  I’ve also seen some tutorials that direct you to drop the liquid directly into the eyeshadow, which I find didn’t work as well as putting a drop on the counter tile and then dabbing back and forth between the liquid and the shadow.  For me, using a cheap angled art brush was second nature, though I imagine others might have a difficult time of it.  And the biggest danger?  If you screw up, it’s a bitch to get it back off without straight-up washing your face.

That being said, I’ve pushed the limits with it, right down to wearing it with full sunblock, walking 4 miles in sweaty 80°+ heat, tiredly rubbing at my eyes, everything.  And when I get home, it looks like I just put it on.  It’s a bit of an investment, but considering that it actually works (and the chances that you already have a few shades of shadow that you could use as an eyeliner), it ends up being a good deal.  That, and I for one am pretty excited to finally be able to pass amongst grownups unnoticed².

¹By all that’s holy, don’t store Eye Seal with your eyedrops, I think they named it “Eye Seal” for more than one reason.
²Ha-haaa!  I am totally joking, I still can’t pass for a grownup.