I don't tend to wear a lot of makeup. That's mainly because I'm lazy and would prefer the extra minutes in bed every morning! For me it's usually a case of slapping on some moisturiser and some concealer and then I'm off. I think the other reason I don't bother so much is that for the most part I wear glasses and I think that any make up that I wear won't be noticeable behind my frames (I'm sure I'm wrong but that's my reasoning!). A few years ago I took to wearing contacts, mainly for social occasions such as meeting up with friends or going to a function of some sort. One of my staple make up items for such occasions is an eyeliner as I think by applying this my eyes appear wider and really stand out.

I've been a firm fan of No.7 amazing eyes pencil however on the last few occasions I bought the pencil when it came to sharpening it the pencil started to break repeatedly and just fell out of its casing, making the product useless. I can put this down to bad luck if it happened just once but it started to become a regular occurrence and at around £8 a pencil this is not cheap and I would expect better quality. The last time this happened I decided enough was enough and I would look for an alternative product. My mum knew how frustrated I was with my eyeliner and bought me a new one through a colleague at work who was an Avon representative and who highly recommended this product.

The eyeliner that my mum bought me was the glimmerstick blackest black one. It is shaped like a pencil and is entirely black except for the product name and Avon logo which are in silver writing. The tip is covered by a lid which is easy to remove. The great thing about this eyeliner is that the nib is retractable. You simply twist just above the nib to release eyeliner and once used you can retract it by twisting the other way. I think this is a great feature as it means that there is no more sharpening to worry about and no more broken pencil leads!

The eyeliner itself has a lovely creamy consistency and just glides onto my eyes without too much effort. I tend to apply eyeliner to my waterline and have found in the past that it can take some pressing of the pencil to get the liner to be dark enough as the eyeline is quite watery. I was pleased to note that this was not the case here and I didn't really need to apply any force to get the eyeliner to show up although in order to build up the colour I did have to apply the eyeliner over the same area about 3 times. I have also found it great for creating the smoky eyed look which is perfect for an evening out with friends.

Avon claim that this lasts for 12 hours. I don't usually tend to wear makeup for that long mainly because I wear disposable lenses and I have to remove them after about 8 hours. But I will say that the eyeliner does lasts for ages and within the 8 hour period I have never had to worry about touching this up. This is really quite impressive as I have very watery eyes (due to allergies to dust as well as hayfever). My eyes can therefore be quite sensitive but I am pleased to report that this did not cause any irritation or redness. When it comes to removing this it is just a case of wiping it off with some eye makeup remover and it comes away with ease.

The eyeliner comes in a range of colours many of which have some shimmer added to them, hence the name, although I should point out the blackest black eyeliner which I have reviewed does not have any shimmeriness in it. The eyeliner is only available through Avon and if you don't know of a local representative you can also buy this from their website (www.avonuk.com) although you will have to pay for postage and packaging.

The glimmerstick normally retails at about the £6 mark but can often be found on offer and I believe my mum paid just £3for my one. At just a fraction of the price of the Boots No.7 pencil, I think this eyeliner is a steal and works just as well as the more expensive Boots one. I shall be looking at buying another one of these when my glimmerstick runs out and will be trying out some of the other colours too! Recommended!