Benefit They're Real! Push Up Liner

It seems like the world and their mother's have reviewed this eyeliner, and yet when I came to reading through them, opinion couldn't be more diverse. From what I can gather the general gist seems to be that for those who have always worked with a gel liner (like me, much to my girlfriend's disgust if she ever has to share my make up) this is a handy bit of kit that means you're not lugging around pots and brushes, however if you have traditionally used a pencil or liquid eyeliner? General consensus suggests this might be a struggle.

At £18.50 from Feel Unique, this beauty is a lot more expensive than my old faithful Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner which retails around £7.99, but I'm almost swayed to say it's worth it. The first thing I love? The cap is screw on and not push on, so so many of my gel eyeliners have dried out in the past when I thought the lid was on properly and it wasn't, so; well done, Benefit, a handy little solution to an age old problem. I like the little flexible rubber "fin" as Pixiwoo seem to be calling it, and it probably does get closer to the lash line than a standard liner, although I've always filled that gap with shadow when I'm wearing eyeliner anyway. The gel is a lot wetter than I'd imagined reading through the reviews, and it's definitely a lot more fluid than the Maybelline in my opinion, although that may well be method of application, too (bare in mind if you use liquid this will still seem pretty "stiff" to you). It's pretty easy to use, twist the bottom until the eyeliner pops through the fin, wipe a quick line on your hand to rid the excess and then line the eyes. You don't need too much product, but I think I read Benefit claim that you only need one click for both eyes and I think that probably is a bit optimistic on their behalf.

I read a lot of reviews saying it was difficult to get a thin line of eyeliner with it and I don't know if I'm just using this differently to everyone else but this isn't what I experienced. I found with a little bit of playing around you can easily vary pressure and angle to achieve pretty much any look you might want. Now, all of these positives aren't to say the product is perfect. Does it live up to it's claims? Yes, it is long wearing and yes it is, for the most part, day to day life waterproof. It does, however, drag uncomfortably on any uneven patch of skin, most noticeably in the photograph of my eye above you can see where it has caught between the corner of my eye and the wing of the liner. It's also fairly expensive for a gel liner, most of which also live up to the long lasting and day to day waterproof claims that Benefit are using to market this pen, and you do feel like you're wasting a lot as I have to swipe at least one line across my hand to get rid of the "glob" when the product is first pushed through. I'll probably buy it again in the future, and I'll definitely continue using it, as it does bring a whole new sense of ease to winged eyeliner, I'm just not sure that it's the Holy Grail product that the beauty world would have you believe.

Do you use a gel eyeliner? Will you be trying They're Real?

S xo.