Clash of the Drugstore Liquid Eyeliners

Hey guys! Hope you all had a great Fourth of July weekend! My fourth of July was not too good, we went to a cookout at a friend's house and I ended up getting food poisoning after eating some under cooked lamb. Not fun, I spent all day Friday recovering. Thankfully I felt much better by Saturday which was perfect because we were heading up to Blue Ridge for a lake house party!




Since I knew I was going to be outside a lot I decided to forego eye shadow and just stick with liquid eyeliner, that way I wouldn't have to worry about any creasing or migration. I had just run out of my trusty Revlon ColorStay Liquid Liner and dutifully headed to the drugstore to repurchase it. I've been using it consistently for over three years, having read somewhere that it was the best drugstore liquid eyeliner. I wasn't in love with it, I just didn't really know anything else.

While at the drugstore I randomly decided you know what, I'm going to try a new eyeliner today! I decided to go with the waterproof Maybelline Ultra-Liner, mostly because I knew I would be getting particularly sweaty that day. Let me tell you........ I am never going back to Revlon Colorstay again!!! In texture and pigmentation, it was leaps and bounds above the Revlon Colorstay. 

Colorstay on left, Ultra Liner on right.

As you can see, the Maybelline Ultra Liner applies much more evenly. I never knew a drugstore eyeliner could be so heavily pigmented; I had gotten used to the Revlon Colorstay's unpredictable ways, coming out too dark in some parts and too watery in others. I would draw the outline of the eyeliner I wanted and then mechanically go back over it until it became the desired opaqueness that I wanted. This was always a tedious process, but one I had come to accept as part of the trade-off when using an affordable eyeliner. Little did I know it does not have to be that way! There actually are really good drugstore eyeliners! Maybe I'm a little late to this party haha but I blame that on blindly repurchasing the Revlon Colorstay for so many years.

Now to be fair, there is one thing I like more about the Revlon Colorstay eyeliner, and that is the felt tip applicator. It was tapered and worked well for creating the cat-eyes that I like.

The Maybelline Ultra Liner, on the other hand, has a precision brush applicator. While it is still thin, it is not really tapered, which definitely decreases its ability to draw delicate cat-eye wings. However I found that it worked well at drawing the general shape, and going back over with a q-tip dipped in eye-makeup remover to refine it worked out just fine. 

Despite the Maybelline Ultra Liner having won this little battle, I think my search for the perfect drugstore eyeliner will continue. Preferably I would like a tapered applicator similar to the Revlon Colorstay with the pigmented formula of the Maybelline Ultra Liner. Two hopeful candidates I have picked out are the Maybelline Line Stiletto liquid eyeliner and the L'Oreal Paris Lineur Intense liquid eyeliner. The Maybelline Line Stiletto has a flexible felt tip which I think sounds perfect, given that I already know Maybelline can deliver with pigmentation. The L'Oréal Lineur Intense has an extremely thin tapered brush that I also think sounds really good. I'm just thankful to finally be out of my Revlon Colorstay slump!!

Let me know if you have tried any of the eyeliners mentioned in this post and what your thoughts were, particularly the Maybelline Line Stiletto and the L'Oréal Lineur Intense; I am really curious about those two!

xoxo Patricia