Do £1 Lip Liners Work?

Essence is fast becoming one of my favourite budget beauty brands, and one that it slowly getting more exposure on the blogs. I'd heard great things about their lip liners. Since I didn't own any nude liner shades, I decided to pick up a few to try out. I'd been inspired to try more lip liners after seeing Suzie from Hello October talking about using a liner with her Mac Creme Cup lipstick. After experimenting with these I've found that lipstick looks so much better on top of a lip liner!

I picked up three shades, all in the same territory, but subtly different. In The Nude is your classic neutral shade. Out of the three, this is probably the closest to my natural lip shade, meaning it'll work with a whole host of lip colours, or on it's own for an easy defined look. There's something about the matte texture of just a liner on the lip that looks simply perfect.

I'd seen Satin Mauve mentioned on one of my favourite beauty blogs, Rosy Chicc, so I was eager to grab this one. I'm very keen to try Kylie Jenner's fave, MAC Soar, and this is in the same vein, so great to try before a £13 splurge! It is almost a plum shade, which could be a tricky nude to pull off. As it is quite dark, I've found it even works with some of my plum lipsticks! One of my fave tricks with this is to use a tiny bit using a light hand on top of a nude lipstick, to redefine the lip line and make your lips look super full. 

I also picked up Wish Me A Rose, as I wear a lot of pink lipsticks. This one actually comes out quite bright, like a bubblegum pink and will work with a lot of my lipsticks such as my fave, Revlon Pink in the Afternoon. 

Overall I'm so impressed with the quality of these lip pencils and the versatility of the shades. For just £1 they're seriously good and you've got no excuse not to buy every single shade!