Barry M Glitter Liquid Eyeliner Review

I recently picked up three Barry M Glitter eyeliners on a trip to Boots which I also featured in a haul post here. These usually retail at £4.99 each but were on a 3 for £10 offer and I also got a free silver glitter polish for free, so it was hard to resist. I really wanted a golden one, but they were sold out apart from one dried out tube, so I chose black, blue and lavender instead.
They were a bit of a fun impulse buy for the festive season, but from what I've seen on the spring/summer catwalks a pop of colour on the eyes is going to be a big trend this year. (Okay, I had no idea about this at first, I admit I got lucky)

L-R: Blue, Lavender, Black

The brush on this product is great: thin, stiff enough not to spread product out everywhere and the perfect length for easy application in one swoop. The colours are lusciously bright, but one major flaw in this product is that it has a clear base. This means it's practically impossible to spread the glitter out evenly and get a clean line on your eye. In order to remedy this I used different products as a base and then applied the liners on top.

On the top picture I used a black kohl before applying glitter eyeliner, on the middle picture I used a blue gel liner as a base and for the bottom picture I applied purple eye shadow with a thin wet brush. I found that using eye shadow as a base did the best job at prolonging the liner's longevity, followed by kohl, whereas gel liner made it smudge very quickly.
You can see on some of the pictures that bits of the glitter have transferred onto my eyelids and this is the main problem with these liners - they have a very, very long drying time and you need to keep your eyes closed for a good two minutes before it's safe to blink without getting glitter everywhere. Not a great product if you're in a rush!
Nevertheless I thought they were great for adding a pop of colour onto the face as apart from the fact you need a base they are extremely easy to use once you've got the hang of using liquid liner.

However, I've also discovered an alternative use for these which offers a more subtle hint of colour if you don't want to go all out with a glitter line. Applied on the tips of eye lashes they give a great sparkle to the eyes but are much less in-your-face. It's also a lot easier using one of these liners than to fiddle around with loose glitter and the drying time is no longer a problem unless you have ridiculously long and curly lashes!

Make sure you apply the liner from both sides (inside and outside) for a hint of shimmer every time you blink.

You can buy these for £4.99 from the Barry M website, but to be honest I wouldn't pay full price for them as I don't feel they perform well enough for that. Barry M often run offers such as 3 for 2 in Superdrug or Boots, so if you're after one of these I'd thoroughly recommend waiting till one of those deals is on again.