Quickie Review: MUA 3 in 1 Extreme Contour Liner

The MUA Extreme Contour liners were recently released with new, funky shades to compliment the existing black shade (perhaps there was also a brown previously?) so I grabbed a few to try out. The liners have a really interesting flat rectangular nib, which supposedly allows you to draw a thin, thick and medium line by angling the tip.

 

 

At £1.50 (you get 0.4g) I grabbed a few shades to try – Smoked Plum (Shade 6), Sage (Shade 7), Fresh Mint (Shade 3), and Gun Metal (shade 8).

Fresh Mint.

Gun Metal.

Sage.

Smoked Plum.

All these swatches are with the holding the nib horizontally and then swiping, then vertically, and then on the edge to get the thinnest line. These are sold as a ‘shadow liner,’ so as you’d expect, the product is very soft. This is both a blessing and a curse - these babies will *not* tug on your lids at all (great for those who are wrinkle-panickers, like myself!) but I would totally recommend setting them with a powder as they don’t dry down, so are liable to smudge and crease. Being soft and a twist-up pencil, you can’t sharpen them, so I’m not sure that the 3-in-1 thing will last very long once you’ve blunted the sides by drawing the thin line.

The pigmentation is average, but not super fantastic. The brown and auburn which I swatched in store were much better pigmented than these shades. Gun Metal is my favourite colour of the three – a beautiful soft grey with tiny blue sparks (which obviously eluded capture!) with Smoked Plum a close second. I was quite disappointed in Sage – it just reads grey to me and not green. I can see myself using Fresh Mint as a base quite often. The packaging is sturdy and the retractable mechanism works and doesn’t stick, which is a concern sometimes with cheap retractable pencils.

 

Gun Metal as a liner, no primer/base.

Gun Metal as a base – the adhesion is pretty nice.

Smoked Plum on the upper lid and Fresh Mint on the lower – Seeing if they’re any nice for creating a wing. Probably not.

 

Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about these. For £1.50 you can’t go too wrong, I love Gun Metal and I’m possibly seeing potential for creating cut-crease looks, but initially I’m not wowed.

What are your favourite liners?