In the past, I’ve had a pretty poor opinion of pencil eyeliners, like they were the dated method to lining the eyes and I’d usually reserve soft pencils for tightlining. Hear that sound? That’s the sound of me eating my own words. 

With my new found adoration of pencil liners, I had a lot of catching up to do. One of my favourite ranges is the THREE Flash Performance, these pencils have gained quite a cult following (other reviews here, here and here) but if it’s a new brand to you, here is the blurb: THREE is a luxury Japanese brand available off Ichibankao and their Performance Eyeliners are goddamn pretty. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

I’ve collected four shades…

01 Eye Love – A warm peachy pink base with silver reflect.
03 Eye Sense – A warm purpled base with pink and gold reflect.
05 Eye Rock – The most ‘basic’ black in the line, a sooty black base packed with rainbow reflects; olive, gold, pink and cornflower.
07 Eye Doll – Perhaps the most unique shade in the line, a cooler khaki base with prominent gold and pink reflect.

So Lonely in Gorgeous has swatches of the entire THREE Performance Eyeliner range, I poured over this post to narrow down my purchases (thanks, Lizzy!).

I think everyone who has tried the liners can agree that the smudge tool on the back of each liner is superb; dense silicone with a tapered point, perfect dragging the product out to a wing.

We’re talking ultra-soft pencils here so no dragging and plenty of sharpening! At ~40USD at pencil, I open the sharpener and mourn over the lost product.

The formula applies like a gel, you barely need to hover over the lash line to achieve amazing pigment but it there is some of that Japanese translucency going on, which you can see on the edges of the swatches. The result is a softer application and blurry edges, as opposed to high impact graphic liner.

The real standout aspect of these liners is the shade range- the complexity is out of this world, multifaceted sparkles peaking out behind the lashes. My favourite way to wear them is to roughly line the top lash line and then take an angled brush, or the included smudger, to drag the product out to a flick (which you can see in my Brow Routine video, where I used Eye Rock on the outer half of the lash line and Eye Love feathered towards the inner half of the eye). You have a window of about 30 seconds to smudge before the product sets, which leads me onto my next point and perhaps my only criticism. I’ve read multiple reviews celebrating the incredible longevity of the THREE Eyeliners but I gotta say, sorry if this steps on some toes: The lasting power is decent but not phenomenal, I get a bit of smudging towards the end of the day (with my normal skin AND an eye primer underneath).

But really, with those beautiful shades, I CAN DEAL.

xxkarima