My Perfect Eye Liner: Shu Uemura Painting Liner M Black

Happy New Lunar Year everybody!! It's the year of the black dragon, the dragon of water! How exciting does that sound? I thought that the perfect product to feature on such a day is my beloved gel eye liner, Shu Uemura Painting Liner M Black/ M Noir (for the French speaking population). 

There are not enough words of praise for this little miracle. I've had the same jar for 2 years and 2 months, I use it at least 3 times a week and only now has it started to not glide on as easily as when I had first bought it, but even so it's still great! Here's a picture of my jar and yes, I am that OCD with my gel liners.

It's not a glossy black like liquid liners tend to be, but that is to be expected since it's a gel liner. It is easy to blend if you wish to do so, but it won't move around much once it's set. I've had no problems with transfer on the upper lid, which was a major problem for me with other eye liners. It is very smooth to put on as it literally glides on on its own. It has served me right on many long days without smudging, flaking or melting or otherwise making me look like a disaster at the end of a long day.

That said, I have a complaint with Shu Uemura in general these days. Their products all seem to be marked as "Designed in Japan, Made in Korea"(open the picture in a new tab and you should see it clearly, instead of "Made in Japan" like they used to. I have nothing against Korea or Korean cosmetics, but when I buy luxury Japanese cosmetics I expect them to be Japanese. The eye liners were one of the first products they started manufacturing in Korea and nowadays it seems like everything is made there. People at Shu Uemura you are a luxury brand, why treat us this way? You were the ones that got me into Japanese cosmetics and insisted on how their quality is superior to products from all other countries, so why did you become a Korean brand? I do feel cheated somehow and will always wonder what the eye liners were before they moved their manufacturing centres to Korea.

Now that that is out of the way, one small precaution to people living in countries were it gets extremely hot. In temperatures over 38°C it becomes very melty so I don't suggest using it. You can get away with a little bit, but not a proper feline eye. By the end of the day you'll look like you put it on with your fists, kind of like  Taylor Momsen and that's never a good look.

Just to show you how much you can do with this liner, I loaded my brush up (an artist's kolinsky brush size 0) with as much quantity as I could and drew this black dragon without dipping in for more! And bare in mind that my liner is very very old in liner years!

 I did various other lines with a different brush, a no-brand synthetic angled brush. 

Happy New Black Dragon Year Everyone!!