It's super fiiine! (Clinique Superfine Liners For Brows)

Member Name: xKatieeex

Product:	Clinique Superfine Liners For Brows
Date:	09/11/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, natural results, no need to sharpen

Disadvantages: Expensive

For Hallowe'en, I was dressing up as a 1950s pin-up sailor and after doing a practice run of my make up; big black eyeliner and red lips, I noticed that something wasn't quite right. After a few minutes scrutiny, I noticed that it was my eyebrows that didn't stand out enough. I looked at a couple of tutorials on YouTube on how to do pin-up make up and found that many of them said you should use an eyebrow pencil to fill in your eyebrows, so then began my hunt for the best eyebrow pencil! Although, it wasn't a very long hunt. Just a few minutes looking them up on Ciao!

.::What is it?::.
Clinique Superfine Liner for Brows is a really thin liner for your eyebrows...they named it well, didn't they? You use this pencil to define your eyebrows, if your eyebrows are perfect they will frame your face and make it look even better. Also, those who have done a bit overplucking can use this as it will fill in any sparse looking areas and you can use it to extend or thicken your eyebrows.

I used this to slightly change the shape of my eyebrows as I was attempting to grow them at the time due to overplucking in the past and needed something to add a bit more shape to my eyebrows until I plucked them into a way I wanted. I also wanted it to make my eyebrows a bit more pointy, like the pin-up girls' eyebrows.

The liner has been allergy tested, is 100% fragrance free and ophthalmologist tested. I had to look up what ophthalmologist meant and it's a person who deals with eyes and the surrounding area including the hair.

Ingredients: ethylhexyl stearate, copernicia cerfera (carnabu) wax, hydrogenated palm kernel glycerides, aloe barbadensis leaf extract, retinyl palmitate, tocopherol, hydrogenated palm glycerides, lauroyl lysine, isopropyl palmitate, silica, nylon-12, +/- mica, iron oxides, titanium dioxide, ferric ferrocyanide, ultramarines, blue 1 lake, carmine, chromium hydroxide green, chromium oxide greens, yellow 5 lake, manganese violet.

.::What does it look like?::.

It comes in a peachy coloured thin, long box which has pictures of white, yellow and green flowers on it. The colours are all really pale and make it look very classy and appealing. The word 'Clinique' is writing in silver writing on the left of the box. In dark green, 'superfine liner for brows', 'trait precis pour les sourcils' and 'POIDS NET WT. .002 OZ/.08g' are written next to it. On the next side is the information about it being allergy tested and fragrance free, this is written in a few different languages. On the back, there is the ingredients and then on the next side is the contact information for Clinique. Finally, there is a little sticker at the bottom of the box telling you the shade which you have chosen.

The actual product is a thin, light grey pencil. At the end of which is the shade you have chosen, then in white writing it has the name of the product, the shade and contact details for Clinique. This is useful incase you lose the packaging. The pencil is about 6 inches long in total. You pull of the top to reveal the tiny liner, honestly it's teensy. There is a small section which has grooves in it; this is the twisting mechanism to push out the liner.

.::Shades::.

The product comes in 4 shades; soft blonde, soft brown, deep brown and brown/black.

Soft blonde: This is a beige, reddish, light brown colour suitable for those who have light hair and possibly those with red hair.

Soft Brown: This shade is quite a yellowy brown, compared to the other two brown colours. This would suit people who have light brown or dark blonde hair.

Deep Brown: This is a reddy brown colour and would look good on people with medium brown hair and also those with dark red hair.

Brown/Black: This shade has a purple kind of tint to it, which makes it suitable for those who have quite dark hair as the deep brown shade will just look to red/light for them. This is the shade which suits me and I have mousey brown hair.

Tips for choosing your shade:

Always choose a shade that's darker than your hair. I read on another review that you should choose a shade that matches your...umm...lady garden, but I think it wouldn't be suitable to use this to help match your shade whilst your standing in Boots!

Never buy it over the internet, you really need to go and have a look instore as it'll look a lot different in person.

Remember that you hair will change colour between summer & winter, so you may need to get two different eyebrow pencils.

.::Using the liner::.

First, you should pluck your eyebrows to get them looks as perfect as you possibly can.

Getting the perfect brows

-Get a thin stick and place it at the side of your nose (at the base) so it's vertical. Put a dot where the stick meets your eyebrow.
-Turn the stick diagonally so the top end meets the corner of your eye (keeping one end at the base of your nose) and put a mark where it meets your eyebrow there.
-Get the stick and put it at the outer edge of your iris, vertically. Where it meets your eyebrow should be the highest point of your eyebrow.

Pluck them in line with these dots, making sure you don't pluck too much at the top of your eyebrows. If you pluck below your eyebrows, it'll make them higher and make your eyes look more awake. It'd also be useful to trim your eyebrows so that you don't have any stray hairs.

There are loads of tutorials on YouTube on how to get the perfect brows, so it's worth looking at them.

When filling in your eyebrows, it'd be useful to keep the dots you had when plucking your eyebrows to give you a guideline of where you should be putting it. My eyebrows were overplucked at the ends, so I had a big space between my eyebrows (at least it's not a monobrow) and ended quite quick at the edge, so I just wanted to try and extend these a little bit and make them look more defined.

As I mentioned before, the pencil comes with a twist mechanism which is great as it means you never have to sharpen the pencil. Six twists of it is supposedly enough to do one eyebrow, but I don't think you need as much as this. I would do three at the most at first and see how it goes for you. The pencil is quite thin so it can be difficult to get a grip of the twist bit, especially if you've been doing other make up and your hands are wet or have make up on them.

The trick to getting really natural looking eyebrows is by using light, short strokes. It's better to start off really light and build up the colour slowly. Don't concentrate just on the sparse bits of your eyebrows, do every single bit so that it blends in well. Do the strokes in the same direction as the your eyebrow hairs are growing so as to keep it natural.

If you're a little short-sighted, like me, it'd be useful to use a magnifying mirror. Just remember and keep checking in a normal mirror to make sure it is looking natural and that both your eyebrows are looking similar - which is the hardest bit about doing it! The guidelines that you used to pluck your eyebrows should keep it looking relatively symmetrical although it is normal for them to be some difference between your eyebrows.

The eyebrow liner goes on really smoothly, it's not hard and doesn't tug on any of the hairs or pull at the skin making it easy to achieve the look you want. The liner stays on all day and doesn't fade away, nor does it smudge if you're like me and are constantly touching your face. It's easy to remove, just a bit of soap and water or you can use make up remover.

The packaging of the product doesn't say if it's waterproof or not, but so far, I've had no problems with it staying on in the rain. I would avoid going swimming with it though as I don't know how well it would stand up to that kind of wet.

I use this quite regularly just to make my eyebrows stand out a little bit more and frame my face. It looks natural and doesn't look weird if you're not wearing any other make up. Eventually, you're able to use this product really quickly.

.::Price & Availability::.

It's £10 (ouch!) which is quite expensive for an 0.08g stick of eyebrow pencil. I worked that out to be £12,500 per 100g, I think that's right...Is it? It seems an awful lot. I do think the £10 is worth it as you only use a tiny bit, it'll take ages to use a whole pencil.

It's available at Clinique counters in Boots, Debenhams, Fraser and John Lewis. You can also purchase it on the Clinique website. I had difficulty in tracking down the Brown/Black shade at many of the stores near me, although I eventually found it in John Lewis. This makes it seem as though it's a popular shade which the stores run out of regularly.
The good thing about buying in store is that you can get the very helpful people at the Clinique counters to help you choose a shade, but watch out for them trying to sell you other stuff.

.::Overall::.

It's a fantastic product that can add a little extra to your face, even without any other make up. It glides on really easy and stays on all day, but is also really easy to remove. It is a tad on the expensive side, but I really do think this product is worth it. It is much better than any other eyebrow product I've used as it provides a really natural result. The only bad thing about this product is the tiny-ness of the twist mechanism as it is quite hard to grip at times, but usually I have no problems with it. I'm in love with this product and it will always be part of my make-up case.

Summary: Get some super fine brows!