UNE Eye Pencils

I'm on an Une role at the moment. I loved the foundation so decided to branch out and try their eye pencils. If there's one part of your body that you might want to avoid products with man-made chemicals in it's probably your eyes, and these are the first eyeliners I've seen that are natural. I wear eyeliner practically every day, liquid on the lashline, and a pencil or kohl on the waterline, and have done for years, so I know I'm not sensitive to any chemicals, but it's never too late to try and be good to my body.

There are a few different eye pencils available, and this is where you need a beady eye because they all look the same, same white packaging, same square shape, and the concealer is the same format too which I found the whole idea of a pencil crayon concealer quite interesting. But anyway, thinking about it, eye pencils are one of the most annoying things to buy, they will be put closely together and get so mixed up, you reach for a kohl and you get an eyebrow pencil, I also don't enjoy sifting through them to find one that hasn't been blunted (real word?). That wasn't an issue with these pencils since they took me the best part of 20 minutes to remove the security packaging when I got home. Still, you might need to look at these closely since the only clue to colour is on one end of the pencil, the names give nothing away as they are random letters and numbers.
Below is the eyebrow pencil in B01. There were only two shades available, and since I'm blonde I went with the lighter shade. This was a bit of a mistake since my hair naturally is quite a dark shade of brown, and so my eyebrows are not really blonde. I usually find dark pencils a bit too contrasting with the light hair so I don't want to go any darker than my natural brow colour. The B01 pencil has a slight reddish tone, so I would say this particular pencil would be great for a redhead, or someone with naturally blonde eyebrows. I swatched it on my hand so see the colour but sadly I will have to sell this since it's really not a match for me, it's far too light. I may go back for the darker shade but have a feeling this may be too dark for me, and since the eyebrow pencils are all sealed and there's no testers, I might give it a miss. From the swatch however, I was pleased with the quality of this pencil, some eyebrow pencils have to be pressed quite firmly on the skin just to get any colour pay off. This usally means they stay put once they are which is important because you really don't want to see your eyebrows smudged half way up your forehead. But I liked the way it just glided on with minimal effort and was hard to rub off my hand afterwards. The colour is buildable, I just got a faint bit of colour to begin with, but it doesn't look like an obviously drawn on line, just feathered, evened out colour with no patches which would look very realistic on your brows. Not so in my case since it's about 3 shades too light but you know what I mean! I had a terrible time opening these pencils, and consequently ended up breaking this one. This is the Absolute Blacks KOHL which was available in two shades, this one and a very similar looking one which I think had a hint of blue, but it was difficult to tell the shade just from the end of it. This is a very highly pigmented pencil, it has a very soft formula, similar to kajal, which is why it broke so easily, but it means this goes on like a dream, so soft! Initially, I really liked how easy this was to apply and achieve a dramatic look if you wanted, but a few hours in and I was not so pleased. I'd only worn this in my flat, and a couple of hours later, I looked in the mirror and I looked like I'd been to sleep in my makeup. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it was smudged up, to the point where I would be very wary about wearing this out in public. I've used a lot of kohls in the past, by many different brands and never experienced this, so it's a little disappointing, since this is the product I really hoped would work for me.

I'm not one to dismiss a product too quickly though and I gave this another try today, this time applying just to the waterline, I think I put a little on the lower lashline last time instead of liquid liner, and it seemed to fare better when not applied directly to the skin.

The third and final eye pencil I got was this Sfumato Eyes Pencil. Now I don't know what Sfumato means to you, but for me, it means a great quality eyeliner, one that is kind on my skin, and doesn't give me panda eyes. I went for S11 (I have to add at this point how much I really don't like the name format of Une's products, it makes them very unspecial and hard to remember) which is a deep dark brown with ash tones. I use this in the same way I would use the kohl, but I was very pleased to find this does not move about of it's own free will, but stays nicely in place underneath my lash line. It doesn't last as long on my waterline but I think that's pretty obvious, the only colour that stays there for long enough is black, any other coloured eyeliner I've used there has generally faded after a couple of hours, maybe less.There were also some glittery pencil liners available which looked fun and perhaps next on my to-buy list.

Has anyone else tried any of these pencils?
Also, please get in touch if you want to take the blonde eyebrow pencil off my hands as I might as well sell it.!

Neutral every day makeup with a splash of colour

If you're like me, you enjoy wearing make-up and find yourself coming back to easy neutral colours for every day use. Neutral can become quite boring though, so I will show you how to create a neutral look with a splash of colour. To see the look created live, you can visit the Youtube tutorial.
This is a look that I find myself returning to a lot of the time. It’s very easy to wear and easy to apply as all the colours are from the same palette. The palette I use is Maybelline’s expertwear eye shadow in Enchanted Forest. I bought this in the US but if you’re in the UK, similar colours can be found in one of the Revlon quads (sorry I can't remember the exact name).
The Maybelline quad has great quality eyeshadows, especially for the price. They’re not brilliantly pigmented, but they’re long lasting, and quite shimmery, and because we’re going for a natural look, they’re perfect. You can always layer up the shadow if you wanted a more intense look.
I use this quad because it contains an olive/moss green colour. The trick to wearing colour in a subtle way is to match the colour of your eye and incorporate this colour into your eyeshadow. It doesn’t have to be exact, but if you have blue eyes, look for a suitable blue. If you have brown eyes, maybe look for a coppery brown coloured shadow for the crease, and for grey eyes, a purple grey, for a subtle hint of colour.
I start off with my primer, I use two faced shadow insurance. Then, using the darker beigey gold colour take a brush and sweep it all across the lid. To build the colour up a little bit, it helps to dab the brush in to the colour, then dab it on to the lid. It takes more time but can see the colour more clearly. Next I use another brush to apply the green in to the crease. I use the dark brown on the outer corner, blending it with the green in my crease. I use this colour because I want a colour that is neutral but darker than the crease colour. If you have brown eyes and are using brown on your crease, apply black or a darker brown to your outer corner. Nothing ground breaking, just easy to wear makeup that's subtle, suitable for work/school and a little more interesting than your typical nudes/neutrals.