I had been following this brand for 8 months for social media and was impressed with their transparency and commitment to safety. Finally splurged and got this for my birthday. I was skeptical, since Ive tried kajals and natural eyeliner before without success, but after testing it for a week this thing is now my everyday fav! Detailed review below; hopefully it helps people.
Application experience: this probably scares people the most, and newsflash: you can use it like a regular eyeliner pencil, albeit horizontally held! This is my favorite way since the traditional method does result in a little bit of fallout which looks good actually but I personally don't prefer it. It doesn't take any more time than my regular holy grail eyeliner does, and creates a thin, natural looking, very black waterline which is actually quite hard to do with the thickness of regular eyeliner pencils.
Wear: I have worn this from the start of the day to the end for a week, wore it while exercising, and while walking an hour under pouring rain with an umbrella with mist in my face. Even with all that, it stayed in my waterline! Since it is natural eyeliner, it will smudge below your waterline over time, but the black line in your waterline will stay and this makes the smudging look intentional rather than messy. The smudging is not excessive even on my heavily lined undereyes; I have had regular supposed-to-be smudgeproof eyeliner pencils collect in my lines before.
Feel: I like a lot of things about this product but this is probably the biggest plus. I have loved waterline eyeliner for a long time, but the fact that I could FEEL traditional eyeliner in my waterline really put me off it. You really cannot feel this in your eyes at all, and I love that about it.
Cons: One - it is natural eyeliner with some olive oil in it, which means it will run more if you have very oily or heavily moisturized eyes. I stopped putting moisturizer directly on the area surrounding my waterlines in the morning and this helped.
Second con - it is after all soot, and a very fine powder, which means wiping it off completely from places you don't want it to be on is quite difficult; it will just become a wash of grey. Do NOT toss the stopper it comes with (skalli essentials - its probably a good idea to include this in the product instructions), and tap the ever loving crap out of the applicator as you dip it and take it out of the bottle. This was more of an issue early on when lack of practice meant I kept bumping the kohl-loaded applicator to the sides of my face or under my eye, but wanted to warn people.
All in all - love this thing, love taking the fancy glass bottle with gold decal out of its dainty embroidered pouch and using an ivory applicator to put this on. Its the one step in my morning routine that feels so luxurious I refuse to rush the process. I will repurchase once I run out of this (although its likely gonna take a while!) Keep up the good work yall - and love your tiktoks!