Catrice Gel Eye Liner Review & Swatches

One of the things that's been sorely absent in the budget beauty sector has been gel eyeliner. DECENT gel eyeliner, at that. Then whaddya know? You wait ages, and like buses, a whole ton of 'em come along at once, like Maybelline's Eye Studio offering and  No7's new coloured cream liners. And there's more where that came from because Catrice and Essence are on the cheapo case too.

Yup, this is Catrice Gel Eye Liner and it's €4.49. Two shades are available: black (its full name is Black Jack with Jack Black, fact fans) and brown. Clearly, I have the black one under test!  So, what's this like then?  Firstly, it's big: you get 4g of product in here - compare that to 3g in Mac's Fluidline. I had a bit of wobble when I stuck my brush in - this isn't firm like a Bobbi Brown liner, for example. It's got quite a thin consistency - I didn't think that was a great sign.

Read on.

Speaking of brushes, while this doesn't come with one the way the Maybelline offering does, you can buy this double-ended version for €2.99. It's synthetic and the angle on one end is a nice touch.

Back to the thin-ness, so. The second I used this I realised any worries about it not performing were unjustified. And you can see that too - here are the swatches. No, I wasn't actually trying to recreate a terrible Chinese character tattoo, I was messing about with the brush to see how it applied the product.

Left you can see it swatched wet and on the right, the swatch is dry and has ended up with a matte finish. Despite being quite thin in formulation, it's not remotely lacking in pigment and in fact the wetness will probably stand to it over time, keeping it in use for longer.

So, how does it wear? Pretty bloody well, actually. This applies really easily with no dragging and while you'll have to watch it as it dries if you've hooded lids so it doesn't transfer, once it's set, it doesn't budge. It lasts all day and doesn't flake or fade. In fact, it's so dark it almost tattoos the eyelids and needs quite firm attention during cleansing to remove it.

If you have a spare fiver, this is a brilliant bet for a gel liner fan and all my thumbs are pointing up for this fab little bit of beauty kit.