In the world of eyeballs, the “hooded eye” is the dreaded black sheep of the family. Adjectives to describe hooded eyes are, “mature”, “droopy”, “crinkly”, and even “ethnic.” I hate the fact that hooded eyes are ostracized in the eyeball world, when many gorgeous women have these “crinkly” and “mature” eyelids. Some examples are:
- Jennifer Lawrence
- Blake Lively
- Leelee Sobieski
- Malin Ackerman
- Giselle Bundchen
- Eva Green (ugh, she’s freaking beautiful)
- Most Asian females, who we all know are totally gorg.
So while I love to defend the beauty of the mighty hooded eye, mostly because I have them myself, I do suffer from one main bi-product of having them: eyeliner looking like absolute caca.
I love eyeliner because it’s the quickest, cleanest way to instantly look put together. Just a quick line, a couple coats of mascara, and you’re ready to go! However, if you have hooded eyes, you know about the dreaded “double eyebrow” syndrome that can occur. I’m talking about how your eyeliner adds a stamp of black on the crease of your eye, no matter how much powder or eye primer you use. It’s annoying, it’s sneaky, and makes you feel like a fool when you notice it in the mirror after ending a long chat with a hot boy.
I am, however, one stubborn lady. So on a recent trip to Sephora, I decided to draw all over my hand with every liquid liner in the store. I then proceeded to vigorously rub/smudge the eyeliners off of my hand. Only one stood strong and proud amongst the others. I even wet my finger and tried rubbing it off. Again, it gave me the finger and said, “I ain’t going nowhere lady!”
Unfortunately I’m a very unorganized person and didn’t think through my actions very carefully, so I hadn’t kept track of which eyeliner was which. After about an hour of trying to figure out which eyeliner the true contender, I uncovered the winner:
Table of Contents
Stila’s “Stay All Day” Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner.
This stuff goes on easily and does not budge. As I’ve mentioned before, I live in Austin where the heat and humidity has made Satan himself scream for shaved ice and a bikini. I’ve seen people’s tattoos melt off for crying out loud! Ok, maybe I’m lying about that…
But I’ve gone out wearing this stuff, danced all night in 90+ degree/70-80% humidity and still woke up the next day with it still looking freshly applied. So I didn’t wash my face, sue me!
Ease of Use
The brush is the perfect shape to make a thin or thick line and is tapered to a thin tip so you can perfect your cat-eye flick. Only drawback is that it dries VERY quickly and has mucho staying power. So if you make a mistake, no amount of licking a q-tip and trying to undo your mistake will work. I usually barely dip a q-tip in Garnier Micellar Water to fix my mistakes (if you used an oil-based remover, it will ruin the eyeliner). Make sure the area is dry and free of makeup remover before you go back and reapply.
Pigment/Look
Gorgeously black, not watery at all, and doesn’t leave a shiny, lacquered effect like some liquid eyeliners can. The end result is a beautifully black matte line.
Staying Power
Omg, like I said previously…this line ain’t going nowhere. Even though this stuff is the bomb, I still use an eye primer along with it.
Removal
I’ve never had problems removing this eyeliner using either using makeup remover or face-wash. Easy Peasy.
Consistency Across Colors
This is where Stila makes me angry. When I tried using other colors, I noticed a drastic formula/quality difference. The brown shade, for instance, had more of a gummy texture and did not last as long as the black shade. It was so gummy that throughout the day I found difficulty blinking without my eyelids sticking together.
Overall score: Depends!
If you use the black formulation, it gets an awesome 3.5/4. If you branch out into other colors, the score drops to a 2/4. So Stila, get your crap together and fix the other colors damn it! If they fix the formulation, this is would be a great product all around.
