Review: Etude House Play 101 Pencil

Ever since I did that makeup tutorial on how I usually do fierce Korean-style eyeliner, I’ve become slightly less adverse to seeing my own face (up close, HD, in 2816 x 2112 pixels), so I’ve decided to do another eyeliner-related post with accompanying photos to wake you up from your post-weekend hibernation :D

Etude House Play 101 Pencils – SGD$12 each

Don’t go sharpening the pencils cos they’re auto and retractable. The portion with the number is where you twist to get the pencil out, while the bottom coloured portion is the sharpener.
A close-up of the sharpener

Get inspired by Korean makeup mastro Pony – she is really working it!

Available in a jaw-dropping 50 shades for every single portion of your face (except for foundation/base) ! :O

The colours that I have:

• 50: Dark brown, creamy – for eyeshadow / eyeliner
• 5: Shimmery peach – for eyeshadow / eyeliner
• 20: Vibrant pink – for lip / blusher / eyeshadow
• 26: Gold glitter-tinged pink – for lip / blusher / eyeshadow
• 28: Glittery iridescent light pink – for eyeliner / eyeshadow / aegyo sal

The rub test – now I applied the same pressure and dragged my finger across all the colours – surprisingly only number 5 and some of number 50 budged. The others were surprisingly budge-proof!
This is how I apply brightly coloured eyeliners – one on top of the other. You can use this technique for the CLIO Pastel Upper Liner as well. Here, I’ve got 50 and 20 on my eyes (even though 20 can also be used as a lip liner)
Eyes done in 50 (dark brown) and 20 (hot pink) while lips and cheeks are done in 26

 I say…

• This is a really fun and novel way to get anyone’s attention – imagine doing up your entire face (except for the base makeup) in just pencils.
• Now the pencils are mostly convenient  and easy to carry around. They come with their own inbuilt sharpeners and are also retractable.
• The textures are creamy and glide on easily without pulling on the skin.
• Most people will gravitate to dark colours as the basic eyeliner, so that’s what I did – lined my eyes with dark brown eyeliner (50), and coloured it up with a hot pink (20) on top.
• 50 is very creamy and smooth, and has a dark intense brown. However, after about 4 hours of wear, it will smudge and somehow spread out into a nice smokey eye color on the upper lids. For the lower lids, it will give a little raccoon effect, so go easy on the lower lashline.
• Using it as a lip color is more interesting – the colours come out very vibrant, but will cake very obviously on dry lips – I attribute this to the fact that the pencils don’t have moisturising qualities to them (lipsticks and lip glosses have vitamins and minerals and what-nots in there to up the moisture level). Make sure you moisturise your lips before applying these lip colours.
• Alternatively, you can use them just as lip liners.
• 28 can be used as an undereye highlighter, but it will only give a very subtle effect – the glitters aren’t visible unless you’re staring at it using a handheld mirror from 5cm away. It’s more of an overall brightening effect.
• 26 can also be used as a blusher – try to use a hydrating / dewy / moist finish foundation/bb (i.e. Aritaum Full Cover BB cream or IOPE Air Cushion XP) so that it can be blended out on the cheek more easily (cos the pencil texture is slightly more matte/dry-creamy).
• I remember trying out shade 37 (a super vibrant peacock turqoise green shade) when I was in Korea, and it.wouldn’t.budge from my hand. I was pretty impressed!

Overall, it’s an uber fun concept for you to play with – and at $12 each, they’re affordable enough for you to buy a few. Since they’re so multi-functional, it’s really value for money. My only gripe is that not all 50 shades are available in Singapore :/