Remember that one time I played around with purple eyeliner and kinda liked it? I had the opportunity to explore the world of lilac liners once more with the Anna Sui Gel Eyeliner #200, part of the Fall 2014 collection, Magic Trick.
In many ways, this is not unlike the Benefit They’re Real! Push-Up Liner that I tried out some weeks ago: it’s a creamy gel eyeliner packaged in a pen-like tube and and dispensed through a slanted rubber tip. But unlike the Benefit product, the formula in this gel eyeliner is much easier to negotiate. I prefer the way this one is packaged too, because the tube is slimmer and feels more comfortable to grip.
The slanted tip is more or less the same as the one you’d find on the Benefit version: it’s made out of a flexible rubber that feels smooth enough on the skin of the eyelids. You twist the cap at the bottom of the pen, and the product is dispensed out of a hole in the tip — but be careful to only twist the bottom three to four clicks at a time, otherwise you run the risk of pushing out too much product.
When applied directly onto the eyelids without a primer, the purple that comes out is a soft lilac, almost pastel; the application is also distinctly less of a chore than the Push-Up Liner, thanks to a smoother formula that requires no tugging of skin at all.
Pros
– Slim pen packaging with pretty decorative art in the brand new black and white Anna Sui color scheme.
– Smooth formula with satisfying color payoff that glides easily onto eyelids.
– Dries quickly.
Cons
– Color tends to melt a little and stamp itself on skin above the eyelid after a few hours of wear on oily lids.
– Dries up and gets flaky a little too quickly, so you have to apply it quickly too.
And here’s another con: for all the promises of convenience touted by gel eyeliner pens, there’s still the issue of messiness. After you’re done using it, the rubber applicator still needs to be cleaned up after each use to keep the surface clear of flaky and dried up purple gel. And then you have to slide in a little stopper over the slit in the applicator to keep the formula inside the pen from drying up prematurely, so what you essentially end up with are fingers and hands with more product than your eyelids.
But maybe the reason why my hands look like an arts & crafts class explosion is because I’m not the most neat and precise person in the world. So while I still really like the idea of a gel eyeliner, it’s probably not the right product for someone who hates cleaning up afterwards. It’s also still much easier to get control and precision with a gel liner applied with a brush, but the convenience of a gel formula in a pen gives this product a pretty good leg-up.
Get your Anna Sui Autumn 2014 collection at select counters located in Jakarta (Seibu, Galeries Lafayette, Sogo, Metro, Lotte Shopping Avenue, Glow Plaza Indonesia, Parkson St. Moritz), Bandung (Sogo Paris Van Java), Surabaya (Sogo Galaxi Mall, Sogo Tunjungan Plaza IV, Jayanata Pakuwon), Bali (Centro Discovery, Glow Beachwalk), and Medan (Sogo Sun Plaza, Parkson Medan).
