Swatch & Review: Maybelline MasterSmoky Longwearing Shadow-Pencil in Black Smoke

On my latest trip to Rite Aid I picked up the Maybelline MasterSmoky Longwearing Shadow-Pencil in Black Smoke.  See what else I picked up here.

Oh, where to start.

I love love love smokey eyeshadow (and yes, I spell smokey with an E). It’s my go-to dramatic eye look, and I would go as far to say I’m rather great at creating a good smokey eye. So I picked up this pencil in hopes that it would make the process a little faster, since it usually takes quite some time getting the shadow blended out just right.

The Maybelline MasterSmokey Pencil itself is moderately soft. It takes a couple of layers to really build up the black. Contrary to other online reviews I’ve read, the MasterSmoky pencil set extremely quickly for me. It was SO hard to blend right after applying.

Here’s a picture of what I was able to do as far as blending, and this was with a LOT of applied pressure. Way more than I would ever use with my eyelids. Which leads me to my next disappointment…

The smudge tip is the most ridiculous excuse for a smudger. I’m honestly appalled that Maybelline would put this on a product. It is SO ROUGH. Combined with the amount of pressure you really need to blend the pencil, this is all sorts of bad for the skin around your eyes… can you say premature wrinkles? It’s so scratchy and irritates the skin to no end when trying to get a good blend going. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it actually picks up more product than it smudges. When using this to blend, it completely erases any pigment you’ve built up with the pencil. It literally ends up looking like makeup you’ve slept in. There’s absolutely NO way you’d be able to get the look the packaging displays. No way.

The last, and probably most annoying part of the Maybelline MasterSmokey Pencil is the cap has NO extra room in it. A.K.A. if you don’t retract the product ALL THE WAY back into the tube, it will smush into the cap. Yep. That really sucks. I learned that after the first use, when I totally screwed up the pointed end (although it would have been dulled quickly because it’s soft).

The Maybelline MasterSmoky Pencil would be suitable to use as a normal eyeliner or base for a dark shadow look, but that’s just not the point of this product so to praise that, I feel, is a cop-out. It’s just not designed to do what it’s intended to do, plain and simple.

Find the Maybelline MasterSmoky Pencils (6 shades) at drugstores everywhere for around $7.99.  Walgreens is running a sale now, B1G1 50% off!

Have you tried MasterSmoky pencils yet? If so, did you have similar results?