Review | Estée Lauder Pure Color Intense Kajal EyeLiners in 01 Blackened Black, 04 Blackened Sapphire and 06 Electric Teal

New from Estée Lauder are the Pure Color Intense Kajal EyeLiners (S$32), complements to the limited edition Pure Color Gelée Powder EyeShadows. Made in Germany as many good eye liners are, they promise to glide on ‘velvety smooth’ and blend easily.

I have a penchant for wooden pencils (I’m not so fond of retractables because they break easily and aren’t always precise), so I was somewhat pleased when I received these press samples from the brand. The black is a rich inky black, the blue is a deep navy and the teal is a slightly muted blued-green (hardly electric!).

All three turned out to be creamy and nicely-pigmented – the colour pay-off from a single line is satisfactorily intense. They draw precisely and easily (no tugging!) too. It’s been a while since I’ve used such pencils, so it was a joy to test-drive these! :)

To test their ability as eyeshadow bases, I purposely blended them out. The black and teal can be smudged evenly for eyeshadow layering but the navy skips and is uneven in this aspect.

The wood that hugs the colours is brown wood; the kind that we might find on a drawing pencil, so I was a little sceptical about their claim to last (generally, smudge-proof pencils are made of black wood or some synthetic material that looks like wood – it’s driving me crazy not knowing what that material is!). However, I was pleased to discover that these are somewhat resistant and need a proper cleanser to remove. Above is what remained on my skin after I tried to rub the lines off with a Watsons baby wipe using a fair amount of strength.

Already available at Estée Lauder counters island-wide, these limited edition pencils are ophthalmologist-tested (they can be used in the inner rims), dermatologist-tested and fragrance-free.