Pages

12 Mar 2012

Avon Supershock Gel Eyeliner Pencil v Pot

As I love eyeliner, and (in case it hasn't been patently obvious from other posts) I really do rate the Avon Supershock pencil gel eyeliner offerings (see here and here, oh and probably here at a stretch too), out of complete curiosity I recently bought the Avon Supershock gel eyeliner pots to see how they fared in comparison.


I was disappointed.  Bitter, I tells ya...

Black & Blue


First up: the blues...



The blues
My favourite colour; any cobolt-y-shocking-electric-y-type blue.  YUM.  I just love it.  I have so many bags, dresses, so much junk jewellery and tops and even a pair of sandals in this colour... sarongs... scarves... eyeshadows, even a mascara.... you name it.  So I got the Avon Mega Impact Gel Liner in Cobalt (pencil) and the Avon Supershock Gel Eyeliner in Shimmering Sapphire (pot) to compare and contrast.  As you can see they both look nice and alive!


On a side note, for some unknown reason I have the tune to Radiohead's The Bends whirling around my head, and it Won't.Go.Away.  I am going to stop for a minute, sing through the entire song, and hopefully it'll get lost then... brb...


Right.  I'm back.


First off, price point.  These (pencil and pot) are more or less the same price; around the £6 (I bought mine from a UK seller; Irish prices are around the €7-8 mark as far as I know).


Swatching comes next... as you can see from the swatches, these are just not the same thing at all.  Although from the picture above the gel liner in the pot looks every bit as vibrant as the pencil, there's no real comparison.  The pencil is highly pigmented, opaque, long lasting (and a little sparkly).  The pot is blue, but disappointingly nowhere as startling blue as the product image above suggests.


The blues
I have swatched them here as follows:
1.  Pencil
2.  Smudged pencil 5 minutes later (hasn't moved much)
3.  Pot
4.  Smudged pot 5 minutes later (as you can see, it has faded and considerably at that).

I was genuinely disappointed with the blue gel pot, however I can probably use it as a cream shadow, in effect, so it's not a complete loss.

Next up, the black offerings...

The blacks

I got the Avon Supershock Gel Eyeliner in Blackened Metal (pot) to compare to my existing Avon Supershock Gel Eyeliner in Black (pencil).

I know that these are a different offering; the pot is a metallic finish and describes itself as "Blackened Metal", not "Black" per se.  In actuality, whereas it looks black in the pot, it's more of a metallic silvered dark grey then a stark matte black.  On the other hand, the pencil is a matte coal black colour.


What is good about both the pencil and the pot (true of all the colours) is that they're creamy and apply easily, but the comparisons end about there.  Whereas the pencils are highly pigmented, opaque, and last ages, the gel pots are nowhere near as pigmented;  they need a few coats for a decent opacity, they take a while to dry, and the finish isn't anywhere as good.


Black swatches (left = pencil, right = pot)
Swatches, left to right, are as follows:
1.  Pencil
2.  Smudged pencil 5 minutes later (hasn't moved much)
3.  Pot
4.  Smudged pot 5 minutes later (has faded a little bit)


OK so the black pot will work as an alternative to a dark base underneath a black eyeshadow (they'll crease about the same amount as most other cream eyeshadow), but I have other black cream bases, so don't really need another one...


So overall, eyeliner-wise, would I recommend these pots to someone who didn't have any other gel eyeliner?  No, probably not.  They're not a bad product, but when you're using gel eyeliner, usually, mainly, you want a decent opacity, and decent pigmentation.  Especially for a black winged liner, and the best you'll manage with this is a silvery grey that fades.  There's as good or better out there that will last longer and be more pigmented and opaque (I'll be posting about gel eyeliners shortly so please check back for a link to this post).