Shiseido Automatic Fine liner : I would love to love you

There are some things you love straight off the bat like the Shiseido Jungle eyeshadow palette, and there are some things you try your darnest to love but fail.

Say hello to the Shiseido Automatic Fine Liner, which sadly falls into the latter category.

This is an eyeliner pen, which is very convenient and not very different from the many eyeliner pens that have emerged over the years, both high end and low end. However, what makes this Shiseido liquid liner pen stand out is that you have to click it to dispense the ink. Hmm… Intriguing? Let me show you.

When you first open the cap, the brush tip is a pure virgin white. The brush tip is pliable but not too soft, so you can get a very very lovely thick or thin line as you like.

To dispense the colour, you depress the clicky button at the back of the pen, pretty much as you would a clicky ball pen. Click away… for quite a while… until you start seeing the white brush tip fill with colour. This can take a while and I got bored waiting.

But when it starts filling with colour, oh my! It doesn’t stop! So if you have been over-enthusiastic, you might end up with a dollop of black ink at the tip of your pen, which does not bode well for application.

That’s the first time. What about the second and third etc time?

I found that the ink is quite wet. So you don’t really have to click out the ink every single time you use this liner. I’ve gone for about 4 days without having to click to dispense ink at all. This is good, I guess because then it does not dry up so quickly. But its a bit of guesswork. I usually run the liner over tissue to see if there’s colour before deciding if I should click out more ink.

In terms of colour, it is lovely. It is very dark with a glossy sheen that is attractive especially if you are into the winged out cat eye, or even for a well defined eye.

However, my problem is with the texture. Remember I said it was “wet” and thus would keep for days? This is the same problem on the skin. I find that it takes too long to dry. So, if I’m not careful and blink, I’d end up with transfer on my eyelid. It bugs me because it spoils my eye makeup especially if I line after already doing my eyeshadow.

If I’m very careful, it does not transfer, but when I use my lash curler, it disappears, transferred onto the curler. This is very odd and I cannot explain it, but it bugs me.

So in summary, its in theory a lovely automatic liquid liner. You dispense colour when you need it, so it does not dry up so quickly, the colour is lovely and dark with a nice glossy sheen and it applies well with a great applicator.

But the formula is too wet and takes too long to dry so it transfers onto my lids. If they could work on that, they’d be onto a winner.

And hey! I’ve just summed up the pros and cons! 😛 So you’re going to have to decide if you really like this one for yourself.

My personal favourite thus far is the Smashbox Jet Black liquid liner which came out with the Heartbreaker collection. It too can transfer, but it dries much faster than this Shiseido one and does not transfer onto my curler. It was limited edition and mine’s drying out so it would be nice if Smashbox could kindly, pretty please with a cherry on top, make it permanent so I can buy a back up!

p/s Love to Love you is one of my favourite songs from The Corrs. Here’s the music video so you know which song I’m talking about. Enjoy! 🙂

Paris B

Shiseido Makeup Automatic Fine Liner comes in 2 colours – Black and Brown and retails at RM110 at all Shiseido counters