Showdown: Diorshow Liner vs Clinique Quickliner Intense

I love my eyeliners but the pencil or soft kohl varieties just leaves a smudging mess on my hooded Asian lids within an hour or so. Worse, some of less smudge-proof ones even migrate from the outer corner of my eyes to my undereye area, truly giving me the panda-eye look.

That’s why for days where I want fail-safe smudge free eyes (read: workdays), I stick with the liquid variety (my holy grail is still the Kiss Me Heroine Make Smooth Liquid Eyeliner), but you can’t smudge liquid liners and achieve the smokey sultry look, so I still keep a few pencils handy for that purpose.

Two of my latest pencils are from Dior and Clinique. I’ve pitted them against each other in a smudge and budge test and I have to say, the results were surprising indeed.

Diorshow Liner Waterproof in Carbon 098

Being promoted as a waterproof, eyeliner I have high hopes. The packaging of the pencil is exceptional - in a metallic sliver pencil design, it oozes 100 points in class and elegance.

Clinique Quickliner for Eyes Intense in 01 Intense Black*

In the other corner we have Clinique Quickliner Intense which is a dual-ended liner. The pencil end is capped by a plastic lid and other end houses a sponge smudger capped by a clear lid.

Top - Bottom: Diorshow Liner, Clinique Quickliner Intense

Both are automatic pencils meaning that there is no messing around with pencil sharpeners as a twist or two of the pencil would give new kohl lead to line eyes.

The Clinique Quickliner Intense is only one directional twist though, so don’t over twist as you wont’ be able to twist the lead back down and will end up with too long of a lead that will break off when you apply pressure to draw on skin, wasting the product (yes, I learnt about that the hard way).

Pigment wise, both are deep black and very intense in colour which Dior's Carbon showing up to be true black on photos more than Clinique which seemed to give a blue tint. They are easy to smoke out but on actual application, the differences between them become apparent.

Left - Diorshow Liner; Right- Clinique Quickliner for Eyes Intense

The Differences
Clinique glides on skin like butter without any tug or pull and feels almost like applying a liquid liner making it very easy to draw closely along the lines of eyes or do any tight lining (lining along the waterline). Dior feels more waxy and takes several strokes and harder pressing for the product to warm up and get the same colour intensity and is not as pleasant to use on upper lids.

On the back of hand smudge test, Dior stands up against the test and passed with flying colours. In fact Clinique looked more smudged after rubbing it a few times on my fingers. I was impressed with Dior at this point.

Smudge test: Diorshow liner is more true black when drawn with pressure and stands up against rubbing better

Interestingly, on eyes, it was a totally different story. My oily lids seemed to wreck havoc with Dior. The pigment fallout appears quickly  too and because of its harder lead, I don’t draw as intense line as with Clinique.

Within an hour of wear, Dior was giving me panda eyes with more fall out and fading of intensity. For Clinique, there was abit of budge but it was not as widespread and the intensity was still very much intact. In fact, I could wear the almost till 4 hours without constantly checking for fall out and smudging. After that, there is a bit of fade and movement which I clean up with a cotton bud.

Tip: Dip the cotton bud in foundation or concealer first before using it to clean off product fall-out or smudges so you don’t wipe off your base makeup from your under eye area.

Diorshow Liner - 1 hour later with a fair amount of smudge, fading and fallout

Clinique Quickliner - 1 hour later: less fallout and minimal smudging

So from a real life test, Clinique wins hands downs in my book for those with hooded or oily eye lids. It is by far more intense and longer-lasting liner that is less affected by oil; the products don't migrate as much and it just stays put. I can see myself using Clinique Quickliner for daytime wear where I want more crisp lines with minimal fall-out and Diorshow for evenings where I’m going to do a lot of smudging work for the smokey look since I'm bound to get smudges already.

It just goes to shows, for eye makeup, the back-of-hand test is very deceptive if you have oily lids. Even high-end waterproof products fail on me and I really can't see myself buying another Diorshow Liner pencil when the Clinique Quickliner can be used for both day and night and is a lot cheaper too.

Have you bought any products that worked well when tested on your arm/hand but didn’t live up to expectation when put to real use? 

Diorshow Liner RRP A$50 at Dior counters in department stores and selected pharmacies.
Clinique Quickliner for Eyes Intense* RRP A$34 available in 6 shades at Clinque counters and online.
Product marked * was provided for consideration.