As I mentioned in my most recent Clinique Haul post, I picked up two shades of Clinique’s newly released product: the Quickliner for Lips Intense. I didn’t include my introduction to lip liner in my haul, so I would like to provide a little summary here:
*cue nostalgic piano ballad*
You see, it was 2007, and being in grade 7 I figured I should probably hop on the beauty wagon, and what better time than the present. So I pilfered a few essentials from my mother’s makeup kit (AKA the “Cave of Wonders” as it really does have everything you could ever need), such as a mascara, a lipstick, and some powder foundation. I thought I was all set, and then one day at my grandparents’ house, my darling grandmother hauled out her Avon catalogue. While flipping through the pages, I caught a glimpse of the most beautiful pink shade of lip liner, and for $5.99, I considered it an investment. Well . . . not only was the formula a bit of a letdown but my application of the product was horrendous. I somehow got it into my head that lip liner meant “draw vertical and horizontal lines on your lips and essentially make them look like cross-hatch shading gone wrong.” All I can say is that I really liked math, especially geometry, and it seemed like the logical thing to do. Upon, reflection, the name “LIP liner” should have clued me in, but hey, if they had called it “lip tracer” I think I could have figured it out and not tried to use tracing paper or anything like that.
*cut nostalgic piano ballad*
But I digress. I have been using these liners ever since I got them, and I really like them, so I wanted to give an honest review of them for those of you looking for a lip liner, or those of you who are curious to know what the product is like.
Features:
- Smooth application
- Long lasting
- Application over enire lip surfacelips extends wear of lipstick
- Non-drying formula
- No sharpening needed
- Wide selection of shades to match all major categories of lip colours
Shades:
There are 11 shades, ranging from dark browns to neutrals, to soft pinks and reds, to bolder shades. To air on the safe side, I picked up two: Intense Punch and Intense Cosmos. This way I would have all my berry hues and all my red hues covered.
Intense Punch
Intense Cosmos
Now just look at how fine that tip is!!! I was really happy about this, because some lip liners have wide tips, making application more difficult, especially if, like me, you prefer a thin line just surrounding your lips. However, I have occasionally been using these all over my lips before applying lipstick because it actually helps the lipstick to last longer (see, my cross-hatching mishap was not quite so far off after all).
The no sharpening feature is a huge plus for me because I find most of the sharpenable pencils end up with really pointy tips that can hurt when trying to apply them. Or they break off like a pencil crayon tip would, and you’re left with wasted liner that you can’t really use.
A big thing that I want to mention is that, while this liner has the perk of not needing to be sharpened, it is NON-RETRACTABLE. So when you go to use it, turn the grey part of the case just a little bit, enough to see a tip of liner but nothing more. If you turn out too much, there is no way to get it back into the case, and this will cause the liner to dry out, or *shudders* you might have to break a little piece off to get the lid back on. And with a $20 price tag, though it is much more affordable than other highstreet lip liners, you don’t want to go wasting any.

But, as you can see from my little doodle test, the liner draws a nice smooth line of varying thickness. It also doesn’t break easily or crumble. Plus here you can actually see what the colours look like, though the package colours are pretty accurate. I have worn these liners with a wide variety of red and pink shades, and they do a fabulous job keeping everything in place without being visible under even pale shades.
Have you tried these new liners yet??? What did you think of them???