#gelpresso

I purchased this for $30 at Club Clio in Flushing, New York.

The metal tin is slim and sturdy, it’s easy to carry around the entire tin or just a single liner. Also, the model on the front looks a whole lot like G-Dragon to me.

The colors in this set are: No. 5 Golden Black, No. 7 Bloody Angel, No. 9 Gold Shine, No. 10 Deep Sea Blue, and No. 11 Jade Green.

The finishes vary by color, from the swatch you can see that some are super glittery a la Bloody Angel, whereas others like Deep Sea Blue are matte.

Deep Sea Blue (10) - A bright marine blue. Much brighter than in the picture. This is the only one with no shimmer whatsoever.

Gold Shine (9) - Super shimmery light gold color. I like using this as a highlight on my lower lash line.

Jade Green (11) - I've realized that jade green is one of those colors with a lot of variants. This is the turquoise sort of jade green, not the pale matcha jade green. Metallic finish.

Bloody Angel (7) - Burgundy red with large pieces of silver glitter. This color has the largest glitter pieces.

Golden Black (5) - Black with subtle golden glitter, so subtle that my camera couldn't pick it up. It only becomes noticeable when turning in the light.

I find that I use Golden Black and Gold Shine the most. I find the set gives a good offering of colors with a basic and dependable black, a highlight shade, and 3 fun colors. Bloody Angel I've barely used because I'm not sure how to work reds into an eye look. Maybe if I ever want to try a Baekhyun look.

We can’t all look as good as Byun Baekhyun with a burgundy eye.

These twist up pencils are thinner in width than the regular size Gelpressos. They also do not come with a sharpener on the bottom of the liner, so you can’t get a super pointy tip.

I find the liners to easily break off. Perhaps I’m twisting up way too much product and applying too much force that the end comes off. Or maybe the stick of product is very fragile due to how thin it is. Which is a shame because my Deep Sea Blue is now pathetically short after breaking multiple times.

A challenge with pencil-type eyeliners is that it is hard to achieve a crisp line. For winged eyeliner I often will use an eyeliner brush to help even out my application. I either smudge out the product already on my lids to soften uneven edges, or I will dab the brush onto the pencil and use the edge of the brush to make a defined line. If I don’t mind my eyeliner not being 100% potato chip crisp I’ll just use the liner by itself.

The texture of the liners is creamy and thick. I like to stick the liner in my bra beforehand to warm up so that I can apply it super smoothly. I find that gel formulas are more prone to skipping and tugging than liquid liners, so I also gently pull the eyelid taut as well.

After letting the swatches set for a few minutes I commenced a smear test by rubbing my finger across the swatches. Part of this test was a gigantic fail because there were some chunks of product that got smeared around, most noticeably the Bloody Angel and Golden Black. When applying to the eyes you would probably want to carefully wipe away any large chunks to prevent giant smearing messes like this one.

Other than that mistake on my behalf I found the liners to hold up fairly well. They aren't 100% budge-proof, but with liners as creamy as these you would probably be expecting a bit of smearing as is the nature of cream and gel formulas. The shimmery glittery bits moved around quite a lot, but the colors stayed in their respective lines for the most part. For these swatches I didn't do my usual routine of eye primer, cream shadow base, and then translucent setting powder on top of the liner. If I had, then possibly the smearing would have been greatly minimized.

I find the liners long wearing, bar some slight creasing in the inner corners after a long day. My favorite way to wear the liners is as a colorful outer wing. I line my eyes with my usual black liquid liner, and then draw the wings out with a gelpresso for a pop of brightness.

Pros:

-Variety of colors and finishes to try out

-Mini size is easy to pop into a bag for on the go fixes

-Decently long wearing (however not necessarily 100% smudge-proof for some)

Cons:

-Tips can break off easily

-No way to sharpen liner, can become blunted with use

Rebuy worthy?