It’s been a while since I’ve tired any Essence makeup and I don’t know why really. I will admit some of their products are hit and miss but the price point makes them extremely affordable. I’ve heard people talking about their lip liners and I hadn’t tried any. I’m yet to try their original line but over the past week I’ve been giving one of their retractable ones a try, here’s my thoughts.

The liner itself comes in this sleek plastic pencil which mimics the colour of the liner inside. The lid doesn’t slide off which is great and I like the silver writing on the packaging which is good. The price point of this is incredibly affordable at £1.50 per liner.

Essence describes this lip liner as the following:
“With Essence Long-lasting Lipliner, you get the perfect pencil for lips with definition! The long-lasting lipliner allows you to accurately trace the contours of your lips. The super soft texture ensures a simple application and provides intensive, long-lasting colour that won’t streak.”

Unlike their original lineup of lip liners, this one is retractable which is really beneficial to me as there’s no product wastage and I don’t have to worry about finding a sharpener or dealing with wood shavings which is great. The drawback is that once the tips gets blunt it’s something you will need to deal with. The tip of this is quite small (though slightly fatter than a wooden tip would be) so it’s precise and easy to line the lips or fully fill them in.

The colour is more vibrant and pigmented than I expected so when applying this you don’t need to layer it up too much (though I go a little heavy handed just to get a full vivid finish. The shade Sweetheart is brighter than I initially thought, it’s a blue toned pink that does translate to be quite bright on the lips.

Application is easy and the texture of the liner is quite nice, it’s not super drying and it applies over the lips with little drag. Once applied it dries to a comfortable demi-matte finish with a satin sheen to it, it doesn’t feel like the life is being sucked out of your lips and it isn’t too heavy.

The downside is that it doesn’t stick around for very long, I wore this for a couple of hours and in that time I did eat and drink, within that time I had notice that it had very obviously faded away from the centre of my bottom lip leaving behind an obvious patchy finish so you would need top ups.

On it’s own I don’t think this is great due to the small staying power but under a lipstick of the same colour (which I do have a similar shade) I think this would increase the longevity and provide a nice even base so it’s not all bad! I probably wouldn’t repurchase as the Rimmel lip liners are only £2.00 more expensive and they stay around for hours, but on the whole it’s not a bad product. I’d recommend this if you were looking for a comfortable and affordable lip liner to wear under lipstick.

The Essence Longlasting Lip Liner in Sweetheart is available from Wilko for £1.50.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and if you did please hit the like button, let me know in the comments if you have tried this lip liner and what products you love and hate from Essence. I’m not fond of their Lash Princess mascara but their Long Lasting Lipstick in Natural Beauty is probably my holy grail.

Thanks for reading!