Of Toys and Co: Stila Seeing Stars Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner Set

During the Beauty.com promotion, I took the chance to get Stila Seeing Stars Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner Set I've been eyeing since it was released last fall. It was a nice selection of colors, and I wanted to see the difference between these Smudge Sticks and the Kajal Eye Liners. There are 5 full size twist up pencils in this set and I'm happy to have the opportunity to try these out.

I love eye pencils. Having said that I must confess I'm also scared of them. One big reason is that my brows are sparse and my lashes are short and thin, so pencils and gel/cream liners often look very harsh or overly dramatic on me. Even after blending, I still can't smudge a pencil to the soft blurry lines I get with a powder shadow. So when I'm out and about for work or play, I almost exclusively line my upper and lower lash lines with a powder shadow.

From left to right: Stargazer, Angelfish, Tetra, Moray, and Oscar Fish. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Another big reason is that I have extremely oily lids. Applying sunscreen on the eye area not only provide sun protection to the delicate eye area, it also helps greatly with oil control and acts as a base for the shadows. However, all the sunscreens I use, and I use several, only get along with one type of eye pencils - kohls. With everything else, including the Kajal Eye Liners and Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on Shadow Pencils I like so much, within 15 minutes something will melt, seeps into my eyes, stains and ruins my contact lenses.

I'm not completely certain which is the culprit, the eye pencil or the sunscreen. It's most likely the sunscreen, because there are eye creams that will cause the same melt down, seepage, and contact lenses staining. So just as I've experimented with eye creams, I did the same with eye pencils - different eye shadow bases, cream shadows, lining over or under powder shadows. But nope, all ends with the same result. There were numerous occasions when I thought, hell, I'm just going to brave it and see what happens. Bad idea, because those days almost always end with me throwing out one of my contacts and stumbled home half blind because, with my contacts almost completely stained, I was pretty much blinded anyway! At least I had the brains to be stupid on days I wasn't driving *shudders*

So how do I go about wearing the Kajal and UD eye pencils? Well, umm, at home, without any sunscreen on the eye area ^.^ What? Don't tell me you don't play with your makeup at home! :P Yes, those eye pencils can withstand my extremely oil lids, but not the oily lids + oil controlling sunscreens. Go figure. All that is a really roundabout way of saying I haven't gone out with these Stila Smudge Sticks yet, as in I haven't tried lining my eyes with them over sunscreen. Really, it's no fun at all to become increasingly blind throughout the course of the day, not to mention the wastefulness of throwing out a brand new pair of contact lenses.

But if you don't wear sunscreen around your eye area (although you really should!), or you don't struggle with oily lids that needs oil controlling sunscreens, these Smudge Sticks are great! They glide on smoothly, even if they're not as buttery as the Kajal liners, they're still quite smooth given all the shimmers in them. I do have one complaint - they don't seem to last as long as the Kajal and the UD pencils. After I swatched them on the back of my hand, they rubbed off easily with just a tissue (see swatch below), whereas the UD pencils stayed on even when rubbed with a paper towel!

- Stargazer: black with silver shimmers. Likey! Sorry these product pictures are kind of crap because the lighting was bad and these pencils are all dark, with the exception of the Angelfish below.

- Angelfish: a semi metallic champagne that's great on the lower lash line.

- Tetra: a deep shimmery eggplant that I much prefer over the bluish purple that is UD Delinquent.

- Moray: a gorgeous deep olive with gold shimmers. I'm so very tempt to step out with this liner. It may worth risking a chance with temporary blindness and throwing out a pair of contacts!