Holy Grail: Eyeliner

I don’t know much about make-up, but I know my eyeliner. My first make-up staple was the black Rimmel kohl liner that every schoolgirl across the country bought as a rite of passage into her teens. Since then I’ve never really let go of the fixture that most of you probably left behind several years ago, and smudge a line of black on my waterline most days. Over the years I’ve tried out plenty of black eyeliners, so I thought I’d share my hard-won wisdom with you.

From left to right:

Barry M Bold Waterproof Eyeliner in Black, £3.99
MAC Powerpoint Eye Pencil in Engraved, £14
Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Liner in Black, £3.99

I’ll start with the most expensive one, MAC’s Powerpoint. I wore this religiously from the ages of around 16 to 19 (when I find a product I like, I tend to stick to it) after I graduated from the basic Rimmel kohl liner. I prefer pencils to liquid, but always found that kohl liners faded far too quickly into an unpleasant grey-ish smear under my already tired looking eyes. This liner seemed the perfect solution – decent staying power with great pigmentation. I swear when I first started buying it it cost a couple of pounds less, but either way at £14 a pop it ain’t cheap. Now that’s not necessarily an issue if you only wear eyeliner on nights out, but I wore it pretty much everyday and found it went down disappointingly fast. I don’t apply a lot but was still having to sharpen with almost every use, so when student poverty came a-knocking I knew I’d have to downgrade…

And this is where Barry M’s dupe came in. Whenever I’m on the lookout for a new liner I swatch a load of different ones on my hand at the beginning of the day, then see which one is the most intact a few hours later. This liner won that test as I was so impressed with its longevity as well as pigmentation, which were just as good as its pricey predecessor’s but without the hefty cost. But like MAC Powerpoint, I found myself racing through pencils, plus they had an added side effect: the liner gets everywhere. Applying it was like juggling with a bucket of black paint. Okay that’s a tad melodramatic but hell, it was not the easiest ride. So I decided to look for greener pastures, which took the form of…

Rimmel’s Scandaleyes eyeliner. Ladies (and possibly gents), this is the QUEEN of all pencil eyeliners. Staying power? Check. Pigmentation? Check. Ease of application? Check. Need to sharpen? Once a week tops. If that. At £3.99 it is far better value than its MAC equivalent, and is far less wily than Barry M’s offering. Honestly you need look no further. The thing speaks for itself, so if you’re in the market for a new black eyeliner, Rimmel’s got you covered.