Essence Eyeliner Pen ❤ Review, Photos, and Swatches!

Everyone needs a good black liner in all its forms - from liquid to gel to pencil, it's a necessity. My favorite form of liner is a toss-up between pencil and liquid pen liners, with both of them having their downfalls. The main problem I run into with liquid pen liners is that they're either not black enough or they run out too quickly. My last liquid liner was Stila's Stay All Day Waterproof Eyeliner, and while I loved it, the tip dried out after a month or so.

I recently found my old Stila pen while cleaning out my old makeup bags, and I decided to try and look for a new one to try out the next time I was in ULTA. I had also been meaning to try out some of Essence's products, having heard about them from a few different websites, and since they're pretty cheap I was interested to see how the quality was. They had two different liquid pen liners - the Extra Long Lasting pen that I picked up and an Extra Fine Tip pen that was sold out.

Now, let me just say right off the bat that I bought this eyeliner pen mainly for its price point - at $2.99 for a liquid eyeliner pen, this wouldn't be a huge loss if it was awful. On the flipside, it would also be an amazing find if it worked well. I had my fingers crossed.

This pen has a felt tip about half an inch long, with a semi-tapered end, though it isn't a "fine" tip by any means.The packaging claims to be "extra longlasting," "[capable of creating] a precise line," "color intensive and extra longlasting," and "smudge-proof." I'm not entirely sure why they make the extra longlasting claim twice. The pen isn't labeled as a specific color, but one can assume from the packaging that it's black.

Unfortunately, this product isn't holy-grail worthy by a long shot. However, it's not the worst... it's just not great. The biggest problem I ran into with this product was the pigmentation of the liner - it's very unreliable, as you can see from these shots. While the lines were uneven and somewhat unpredictable to begin with, there wasn't a single line that I made that didn't have uneven coverage. This definitely isn't a "true black," as one swipe leaves you with a dark grey color, and even several applications still yields an unevenly colored line.

Another issue I had with this pen was the felt tip applicator, which seemed very flimsy, especially the semi-tapered tip. To try and get the darkest color possible from the tip of the pen, you would have to press down very hard, and the tip seemed to fan out in response to the pressure, which it didn't make sense as it was a felt tip. I think that the tip of my pen seemed to have been worn away or in the process of breaking down, possibly from being used in-store before I bought it. The darkest application from this liner actually came from lower portion of the tip that wasn't tapered.

The darkest lines came from pressing very hard while using the pen - the lighter lines are what the pen did normally.

The dark line in the upper right-hand corner smudged easily even after it had been set for several minutes, as seen here.

As far as being "extra longlasting" and "smudgeproof," the lines of liner could be easily smudged whether it was a second or a minute after application, with minimal pressure. When I used this liner on my eyes, I didn't run into any smudging until three hours of wear.

The packaging of this product also bothered me a lot - the cap isn't sealed when you buy the liner, meaning that it could be easily dried out before you even buy it. The cap also has a tendency to come loose if you're carrying it around in a bag, and you have to make sure that it's snugly snapped on or else risk drying out the tip. I've been storing the pen upside-down to try and keep as much product in the tip as possible, but the packaging never states that you should do this, which I think is an oversight on their part.

The main problem with this liner, I think, is the fact that it isn't waterproof. I don't know how many liners can claim to be smudge-proof or long-lasting without having a waterproof quality to them. The fact that there isn't any type of security seal on this liner when you buy it is also annoying, since you don't know if anyone has used the product or if it's dried up. I'll probably use up this liner, but unless some miracle happens within the next few uses, I doubt I'll re-purchase it.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this product to anyone, unless you're tight on cash and don't mind dealing with the finicky tip applicator and uneven coloring.

UPDATE: After storing this pen upside-down for a day or so and re-trying it, it does yield way better and darker lines and pigmentation. However, it can start to become uneven after you've been using it for a bit, so you have to work pretty quickly. Shaking it can help somewhat, but keeping it upside-down seems to be the key for getting the darkest and blackest strokes this eyeliner can give. I have been using it as my go-to liner, and the unpredictable-ness of the pigmentation is the biggest annoyance by far.