Ulta: $4.49
Douglas: €4.95
http://www.nyxcosmetics.com/products/eyes/eye-shadow/jumbo-eye-pencil
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Yogurt
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Cottage Cheese
This is probably one of the most confusing products I have ever tried. Confusing for several reasons, but the main reason, the ‘parent’ reason, if you will, is the fact that people continually rave about, recommend, and repurchase these things.
One major point that people that people always talk about when they review these guys is the pigmentation. That, I will allow for. The pigmentation is pretty good. And yes, they do make shadows way more vibrant. Ok, on that point I agree with everyone else.
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils Swatches
Left: Cottage Cheese
Right: Yogurt
From left to right: Urban Decay Sidecar over Cottage Cheese, Sidecar over UD Primer Potion, Sidecar on its own
But in every other respect? They suck.
People do normally talk about the creasing in their reviews, and I agree. My eyelids are pretty oily, and this creased like crazy without primer almost immediately. With primer, it lasted a tad bit longer, but nowhere near what it should. Setting it with a powder also helps, but it doesn’t completely solve the problem
Surprisingly enough, what I haven’t heard squat about (although maybe I didn’t look hard enough), is how unbelievably crappy the packaging is. The lids crack really easily, and so either continuously slip off or get jammed too far down.
That’s bad, but honestly if this happened with another product that I liked it I could definitely deal with it. The cap never smushes the product, at least. But no, I have far worse gripes with the packaging. So when I got the product and was checking it out for the first time, I was pretty disappointed when I couldn’t find a way to twist the product up and down. It looked like what you could see through the lid was pretty much all the product you were going to get. OK, I know $4 isn’t going to break the bank, but for that much product? So not worth it. I’m not great with measurements, but I was pretty sure that what I was seeing was not 5 grams. I got curious and wanted to see how much product was actually in the stick. What did I do? I cracked that sucker open. By the way, I wouldn’t really recommend trying it, it makes a huge mess. And ladies and gentlemen, when I say huge, I mean huge. To my amazement, the product ran a fair ways down, about the where the color name was! All that product, and as far as I could tell, no way to access the product. Excluding breaking the packaging, or depotting it, of course. There was no way to twist it up, and the packaging is plastic so sharpening it down like a traditional wooden eyeliner pencil is out. I don’t know about you, but I for one do not call that good packaging. No one else seemed to be complaining about this though, so there may be some secret way that I don’t know about. If you know, please comment below. It bamboozles me. But even if there is a way, if I haven’t found it within like 5 minutes of looking at the product, it is too obscure and therefore doesn’t work.
Conclusion:
This product does make colors pop, but honestly if you need to depot it before you can actually use it (taking away the whole jumbo stick advantages) and even then it creases despite your best efforts, it is NOT a product that I would consider worth purchasing, even if it is under $5. When you consider how many cream eyeshadows there are, and even how many fatter stick cream eyeshadows there are, I really don’t think there is a justification for getting this product.
Rating: C-
Beauty and the Freak 