New for Fall/Winter 2015, essence has released their easy 2 use jumbo eyeliner pen – a black felt tipped liquid liner. With a suggested retail price of $3.49 CAD, this is a pretty inexpensive liner… but how does it perform?

I’m always a little bit skeptical about felt tip eyeliners as I’ve never had amazing results with them. And I’m even more skeptical about huge, chubby felt tipped eyeliners because I feel like they’re really unwieldy. Oddly though, while I found the felt tip to be on the shorter size of things (I’d prefer it longer and sleeker), the chubbiness of the pen didn’t bother me much when I was lining my eyes.

The easy 2 use jumbo eyeliner pen swatches a dark, opaque black, but you will notice a little bit of skipping around the edges. It’s not super obvious, but since I’m used to brush tip liners, I did notice I had to make a couple passes to fill in the skips. The eyeliner isn’t totally matte as it has a slight sheen.

As you can see in the shot above, it’s VERY pigmented. It goes on the eye smoothly and stays put. I didn’t notice any fading throughout the day, although I did notice the liner got a little bit shinier as the hours progressed (probably oil build up from my eye).

You can see a I got a fairly clean edge all the way out to the corner. Since the felt tip is slightly thicker than my usual eyeliners, I did find I had a bit of a tougher time getting a super sharp point at the end, but that may just be because I’m accustomed to slimmer tips.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with how this liquid liner performed. The felt tip has enough flex to get into the crevices of my eyelid, and the pen delivers product all the way to the tip (huge bonus!). The price point ($4 CAD) is also highly attractive and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the product.

essence is sold exclusively at Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada and at Ulta and Fred Meyer in the US.

This post features press samples sent for consideration.