A Line (or Two or Five) About Eyeliners

Last December, I got all fancified for The Hubby's office party. You may remember this look, which featured an updo from my local, lovely hair salon and some seriously dense eyeliner:

I was surprised by how much I liked the the fairly heavy application of eyeliner. Usually my makeup routine hovers in the "slim-to-none" region. But I decided that maybe I should investigate wearing a bolder liner, and  on a daily basis. So, since December, I've been trying to find a good one. Because this is what I had been working with: 

A positively decrepit Estee Lauder palette, ca. early 1990s. I have IRAs younger than this! As you can see from the brown and black pans, I was trying to mix up something blackish-brown. Or maybe brownish-black.

 All the while using an eyeliner brush that is getting very, very tired.

But in the quest to find Mr. Perfect Eyeliner, I didn't want to make a lot of expensive mistakes by beginning at the cosmetics counter of my local, high-end department store. So I started my search at the drug store. First up, Wet 'n' Wild H20 Proof Liquid Eyeliner, at about $4 a pop.

Ugh. Let's just say it was so bad, I tossed it in the trash can before I even thought to take a photo of it. But if you insist, here's an image from amazon.com.

Next I tried Revlon's ColorStay Liquid Liner in a skinny bottle, also about $4, with a brush in the handle.

It goes on easily enough, but good golly, look how much it bleeds! This is unacceptable. Anybody on the plus side of 39 knows that cosmetics that bleed are No Frickin' Good:

It took me a little while to track these puppies down (below), but I had high hopes. Revlon ColorStay Gel Eyeliner is about $10 each, at your local drug store. I got a little silly and bought Brown and Plum.

 Bad idea, that. The plum one is such a pretty color:

But neither shade is much better than the liquid liner. True, the gel liner doesn't bleed. But it covers unevenly, has a tendency to clump, and dries up too fast, making it hard to go back and fill in the less-than-solid parts left after you first swipe this along your eyelashes. The gel liner is on the bottom, in the photo below:

At this point, I'd had enough of drug-store eyeliners. Next step: the beauty-supply stores. The lovely young lady behind the counter swore this would do the trick:

Smashbox Jet Set Waterproof Gel Eyeliner.  At first, I was skeptical. It looked a lot like the not-so-great Revlon gel liners:

But it went on much better, with a smooth, even coat that didn't require a second or third application to fill in the patchy parts (the Smashbox liner is the bottom one in the picture below):

I think I found my best option. So I bought a new liner brush to celebrate.

And how does it look? It looks pretty good.

And it only takes direct sunlight, a 5x magnifying mirror, and a pair of trifocals for me to put it on properly!