ColourPop Creme Gel Liners – Fab or Fail?

Have you ever purchased a cosmetic item because you thought it was love at first sight?  I think much of what I buy when it comes to makeup fits that description… though I have been very lucky to have purchased products that I do enjoy.  Right after ColourPop’s release of their Creme Gel Liners, I decided I would pick up a few of them to try.  Come on now… we all know that there is absolutely no way I was going to ignore it and I knew that I just had to have it.  With over 80 eye shadows in my collection and a ton of lippies, I had hoped that these liners would make a great addition to my collection… but did they?  I love the eye shadows and the lippies and had expected that these liners would really hit the spot when I ordered them… but since we all know I like to keep it absolutely real, here’s my break down and low down on the ColourPop Creme Gel Liners.  Are you ready for this?

I picked up a small selection of the pencil Creme Gel Liners and the Creme Gel Colour liners in the pot.  The potted liners retail for $6.00 and the pencils are just $5.00.  Considering the price point I really think these are not bad in cost.  The pencil liners are twist up types but honestly, I think the formulation of the liner itself is just too soft and creamy for the packaging it has come in.  I have broken several tips while using and testing these and I find that the formula of the pencil is so soft, with a little warmth, they can easily bend and break with ease.  The packaging for the Gel liners in the pot is quite nice.  I love that sturdy glass feel and the weight of the packaging itself makes for ease of use.  The pot has a great shape to it which makes storing a breeze and I’m quite impressed with the packaging overall.  I decided when I placed my order that I would get colors I knew I would make use out of so besides the bright purple (Piggy Bank), all of the shades I got were ones I know would be wearable for every day or otherwise.

I only purchased three shades out of the many that ColourPop offers.  It’s obvious that with my love of purple, I needed to get a purple liner and I figured a brown-like and black would be ideal since those are colors I use often and could really be the judge of whether they were a fit for me.

Piggy Bank (purple) is a gorgeous purple shade and I would have loved to be able to use this more as not only a liner but also as a base.  The liner is kind of odd in texture and has a weird sticky feel to it that reminds me of glue.  When glue is just about to dry and still has a bit of tackiness to it.  It doesn’t smooth onto the eye lid easily and creating a precise line even with the skinniest of liner brushes is a struggle.  I’ve been doing makeup for years and still found that my line became too thick for me because working with this particular liner was not easy.

Best O (blackened burgundy / deep burgundy shade) is another gorgeous color.  It has a matte finish and would make a great liner for every day if it didn’t have the same type of texture as Piggy Bank does.  That sticky glue like formula makes for creating a precise line quite a challenge and I found that this shade is best used to draw along the lash line but not to create a wing.  It takes a little more time and effort to apply than what I am used to.

Swerve (black) is your basic matte black shade.  This liner is super creamy and applies okay.  It feels like it has somewhat of a mousse like texture, which can make application a challenge depending on the brush.  I find with a thin liner brush it applies much better than with a flat liner brush.  While I think this one applies the best out of the three I got, I still expected a lot from these and was a bit let down.

The swatches below were taken immediately after the liners were applied and before they had dried and set.  I wanted to show how each one applied specifically with each type of brush I used to test as well as how they skipped when applying.  As you can see – the black is the best in application, but if you don’t let it set and you touch it before it does, it can smear.  Once set – it seems to be quite smudge proof.

These liners dry very quickly, which made them difficult to use as a base for eye shadows – I tried and it just turned out to be a mess.  While they dry and set well and I noticed little to no smudging, if I were to drop water on these liners (swatches) or my eyes were to tear up as they often do due to my allergies, these became a mess to look at.  One day I had used the liners to create a wing liner and as my eyes teared I noticed that it started to drip down the sides of my eyes, causing havoc on the rest of my makeup.  While these may work just fine for others, I can’t get away with it if I’m having a sensitive eye day.  When I used these on days my eyes were fine, I got several hours of wear without any issues so long as I didn’t wash my face.  I cannot use these on my waterline at all as they will run.

Since I had high hopes for the Gel liners in the pot, I had hoped that the pencil liners would work as well as some of my favorite drugstore brands.  These are nice in that they have a twist up top which allows for dispensing the product.  Each shade color is displayed on the end of the pencil as well as at the tip so you know which color you are using at any given time.

Stomper (cool toned brown) is a great every day liner.  This is the liner I have gotten the most use out of since I started using these.

No Shame (blackened violet)  is a gorgeous liner that would be a great alternative to using black.  I use this liner right at the base of my lash line (not on my waterline) and it will make my brown eyes really pop and sparkle.

Get Paid (metallic rose gold)  Who doesn’t love a great rose gold – if you know me, you know this is one of my favorite colors.  The liner is gorgeous and has a metallic sheen to it – not matte like the others I have.  It applies nicely and makes a great pop of color for every day or for something special.

Call Me (deep plum brown)  This is a great brown shade and brings out my eye color, however… this pencil consistently breaks on me… even in the pencil itself it seems to break before I even twist it up.  It arrived bent and hasn’t been good since the first use.

So – these liners apply like most pencil liners do.  They have a slight creamy texture and smooth onto the lid pretty nicely.  They do seem to take a lot longer to set than the pot liners and smudge very easily if they are not dry.  These are a little more workable than the pot liners which would allow them to make pretty okay bases for your shadows.  I cannot use these liners on my waterline AT ALL because they will create a mess and I’ll literally look like a done up raccoon.  They are not waterproof in my opinion, but so long as you are not tearing up a lot (as I can do sometimes) they will have some pretty good staying power, lasting my eye looks quite a few hours in my day.  Again, once these set, they don’t seem to smudge much, but I would not pull for these on a day where my allergies are bad because they won’t last.

I think the pencil liners definitely have some ease of use to them, but if you are looking for a really precise and sharp line with these, once you use them, the actual pencil starts to dull down some.  The twist up function of these make it easy to use and replenish the pencil, but it doesn’t have that point that I tend to look for in a pencil liner.  While some of these seem to do pretty well, I’m disappointed that the liner breaks so easily within the pencil chamber.  If you lightly shake the pencil you can hear the actual liner moving around on the inside, which makes me think that that is the reason why they break so easily… it’s loose in the casing.  I think the packaging itself could use some fixing so that the pencils do not break as easily.  Each pencil I have (4) has broken in some form and once it does, you can’t fix it.  The actual pencil itself is also very skinny and the formulation a bit soft so I have noticed quite a bit of warping in the pencil itself from a change in temperature and I stash these in a room with air conditioning consistently.

Check out the video below for all the details and a chit chat review or click here to watch directly on YouTube.

While I’m a fan of ColourPop’s shadows and lippies and I can make use of these liners if I have the time, I do not think I will be repurchasing or purchasing anymore of these.  I think if they made a change in the formulation for the Gel liners in the pot and switched up the packaging some in the pencil liners, I may try a few other colors I had my sights on but at this time, I think that while these are affordable, I will not get much use out of them if I decided to invest in more.  Don’t get me wrong, I will surely try my best to make the ones I own workable for me… I hate wasting my money and on days when I know I’ll be able to make use of them, I’ll definitely be doing so.  But, I was very underwhelmed and unimpressed with the liners this time around.  Since ColourPop is only about a year old or so – I would expect that there had to be something in their creations that I wasn’t a fan of as they slowly work to create perfection, but that doesn’t mean I would enjoy the brand’s products nonetheless.  ColourPop still has a piece of my cosmetic heart – even if these were a fail for me.

What about you?  Are you a ColourPop fan and if so, have you tried these yet?  If not, do you have anything on your list you plan to check out soon?

Disclaimer:  All products discussed and mentioned in this post were purchased by me with my own money.  I was not paid to feature these products.  All opinions are my own and 100% honest and unbiased and affiliate links are posted through out.