Maybelline Lasting Drama 24H Gel Eyeliner

During the Irish Bloggers Meet Up a few weeks ago, I bought the new Maybelline Gel Liner on the recommendation of Katie. Having been a major fan of the Bobbi Brown gel liners, I was gutted to find that all of mine were drying up within a few months. My quest for a new, cheaper gel liner began a few months ago and I think I've found the one I've been looking for.

I purchased this in Boots for 8euro/£5.99 and for the price its a brilliant product. The liner is super creamy and glides onto the eye with ease. As much as I love my liquid liner, this is definitely easier to apply. Most importantly, it stays put all day. With other gel liners I've tried, touch-ups were necessary but I don't have to worry with this one. Slick it on and your set to go.

Whats even better is that it comes with a full-size liner brush, which is sturdy and works brilliantly with the product to create a perfect thin or thick line, with or without a flick. The pot itself is a sleek glass one and the cap turns to perfectly lock the product in, removing the chance of it drying out. This high-street liner has blown my Bobbi Brown ones out of the water. And at such a low price, you can't really go wrong!

 

A closer look..

 

Irish Bloggers Meet Up

  Yesterday, a few of us Irish bloggers met up after a while of chatting. It was really a lovely day and was great to meet other people who had the same common interests as myself. Not only did we all get on really well, but it was brilliant to actually meet the people you follow on Youtube or Blogger.

We had no real plan for the day, but a massive chunk of it was spent in Brown Thomas! We met up pretty early in the afternoon, shopped for a while and then got lunch in the lovely Calzone Cafe. Then we wandered over to find Make Up For Ever, which to our upset we found was closed on a Sunday. In order to immerse ourselves in make up, we made a lightening fast dash to Brown Thomas, where I'm pretty sure we helped MAC reach their targets for the week!

Almost everyone bought a few things in Forever21, MAC and Dior and it was really great to talk about products we liked and those we didn't. After a long day of shopping, we collapsed into the doors of Starbucks (Louise's first time ever!) and rejuvinated on coffee, frappucinos and hot chocolate. All that walking, talking and shopping really wore me out and I'm embarassed to admit I was in bed by half nine!

Katie and Laura

Myself and Sandra

Louise and Sarah

Like I said before, it was really great to meet the girls and ramble away about our love of makeup and beauty products. Especially because there are so little Irish bloggers out there. It was a great day, the weather stayed lovely and we shopped til we dropped! One's to follow: Louise, Katie, Sandra, Aoife, Sarah, Kate and Laura.

Here is a haul of the stuff I bought yesterday:

While I Love My Make Up...

I love my dogs more...

Like the saddo I am, last night I ended up watching Legally Blonde 2 (absolute disaster of a film) on the television. This morning while doing my college essay I began thinking about today's post. Animal Testing. Anyone will tell you that I'm against wearing fur, but strangely animal testing in regards to cosmetic companies was never something I paid attention to. I would never buy a make up product knowing it was tested on animals - BUT - being the slight makeup snob that I am, I was under the insane and inaccurate belief that because the products I buy are more high end, no animal testing would be carried out to produce them.

Fail, Julie.

After doing a small amount of research on the subject (my poor college essay!), and watching some really disturbing videos about the treatment of animals being tested on, I thought I'd share with you some of the information I found out. There's little point in debating the pros and cons of it, as in my eyes its just wrong. Pixiwoo have a list of companies that don't test on animals in full here, and those that are safe include MAC, Nars, MUFE, Eyeko, Beauté, Laura Mercier, Urban Decay, Sleek, Estee Lauder and Illamasqua. Phew! Thank God, if they tested on animals most of my make up would be in the bin.

Those that are ambiguous in their animal cruelty policy include L'Oreal, D&G, Max Factor, Rimmel and Benefit. As much as I loved my Benefit foundation and was ready to repurchase, I definitely won't be doing so now. As for the others they've been removed from my make up drawer. For a list of all the companies that DO NOT test on animals click here. While I love make up and the little collection I have going on, not at the cost of an animals life. This time the price of beauty is too high.

Image courtesy of weheartit



What do you think about animal testing? Do you knowingly use products tested on animals?