Chanel La Ligne de Chanel - Professional Eye Liner Duos

image from chanel.com

There are a few things I am very particular about when it comes to makeup. After 25 some years of wearing makeup (and yes, I realize that some of you reading this aren't even 25 years old so just hush) I have found that I love two things and will never ever stray. 1) Chanel Joues Contraste Blushes. They are perfect for me. Those blushes deliver the right amount of color and last all day long. I FINALLY have made arrangements to get the last color on my MUST HAVE list. Once I have that in my hot little hands I will feel complete. 2) Cake Eye Liner. Now for the most part the cake liner does NOT need to be from Chanel, but hey as long as I'm able to get them from Chanel, I might as well.

The reason I love cake liner so much is that I have control over the application like no other liner. I can control how dry or wet I want it, how thin or thick and how sheer or opaque I want. Most important, cake liners, if they are made from good ingredients, will stay forever and a day on my oily lids...even without primer. I have been using cake liner on and off for years. I think my first one was from ...Sshhh...Clinique...and it lasted me a very long, long time. Ah yes. That's another great thing about cake liners, the product itself lasts forever. Seriously it took 2 years of constant use to even hit the pan in my Benefit cake liner in grey. So when purchasing a cake liner I make sure that it is in a color that I know I will use a lot, is of good quality, and in a color I don't already have. There is no sense in owning 2 cake liners in the same color as it would take years to finish one before you even get to the second one...and by then you might have a different yearning for liners or the color you chose may not suit you any more. Since I love doing winged liner a lot I really find that the cake liners coupled with my MAC 210 Precise Eye Liner Brush give me the most perfect slim line.

One thing that I think sets the Chanel La Ligne de Chanel Professional Eyeliner Duo liners apart from other cake liners is the consistency when a liquid is applied. I use water, but you can also use saline. I put water in a little mixing ramekin I have and dip my brush in. I get the brush medium wet and swirl in the cake liner until I get a good creamy consistency. Some cake liners will absorb the water as soon as it is applied to the cake and you get a very sheer and uneven application. It is difficult to pick up pigment when this happens. Laura Mercier cake liners do this. It's very disappointing because the color payoff with the Laura Mercier liners is 1/4 than that of the Chanel...and the Laura Mercier is about 1/2 the cost of the Chanel too. I guess you get what you pay for. Now don't get your panties in a twist over my Laura Mercier example. This is one of the cake liners I have recently used. There are other cake liners out there that suck just as bad as the Laura Mercier, I just haven't used them recently.

So today I am going to show you three of the Chanel La Ligne de Chanel Professional Eyeliner Duos. Chanel used to have cake liners many years ago, but stopped making them probably back in the late 1990's. In the mid to late 2000's Chanel came out with the La Ligne de Chanel Professional Eyeliner Duo which has a cake liner on one side and a hard shadow liner on the other. The hard shadow liner is infused with glitter. Many may have made the mistake of using the shadow liner wet...which I think they found did nothing but make the product look muddy in the pan and lose all glitter when applied to the eyes. The Chanel La Ligne de Chanel Professional Eyeliner comes with two brushes. A synthetic tapered brush..which I find hard to control and too small to use properly and a foam tipped smudger brush which is really excellent in applying the hard shadow side and for smudging the liner into the eyelid. It also picks up and deposits the glitter on your skin and doesn't keep it embedded in the foam. WIN! Currently they are releasing colors every few collections. They have released Brun Lamé, and Celadon Lamé which are limited edition and have Nior Lamé as the standard, always in stock color.

So here are the three that I own.
Brun Lamé is a warm brown that looks a tad darker on the eye than it does in the pan. The cake liner is richly pigmented and dries a little darker than it looks when it is applied. The hard shadow side of the duo is a nice medium toned brown with gold glitter. The glitter is small and does not overpower on the eye. On days when I do a brown liner I like to smudge the glitter shadow side under my eyes to give a really nice smudged smokey look. Sadly this color was limited edition and is very hard to find. I scored mine off a friend, but you may be able to find this color on evilbay if your really NEED to have it....which I will discuss at the end of this post.
Celadon Lamé is the limited color that is currently available at Chanel.com or at your local Chanel counters. This came out with the Winter collection. This deep cool toned green is so dark it looks black when applied. It really is pretty in the pan, but Celadon Lamé disappoints once applied to the skin. The green is so deep and so dark it tends to look black when applied and when viewed under normal light. In the sunlight Mr. Sith claimed that he could see the green liner but this is the same man that can't tell the difference between Teal and Turquoise so let's consider the source shall we? Either way, the hard shadow side is the same deep green with silver glitter. This, when smudged does show up as a deep green on the eyes. I have a feeling that darker skin tones might benefit from Celadon Lamé than lighter tones as I think the green may show up better on skin that has a warmer or darker golden cast to it. Just my opinion.
Nior Lamé is the standard black cake liner and black hard shadow liner with silver glitter. The black liner is opaque in one application. It is a true black and does not seem to pull blue or red as some backs have a tendency of doing. This is truly the ONLY black cake liner I plan to use for the rest of my life. Yes. I'm ready to make a commitment and I choose Chanel Nior Lamé. If I hear that this liner is going to be discontinued I plan to buy 2 more. I think that will last me until I keel over. I plan to go out in red lipstick and black Chanel liner...just so you know.

So the big question. Do You NEED this? I'm going to say...No. As much as I LOVE Chanel cosmetics and as much as I love cake liners I think the cost is very high for the average consumer. At $45 each I don't think that owing more than one is necessary if your really, really love them as much as me. I happened to collect these liners at different times and in some cases, for less than retail. If I had to buy them all at retail I would only get the Nior Lamé liner and skip the Celadon and Brun liners. I think that Benefit and Illamasqua make cake liners that are almost as good as the Chanel product and for the price difference it may not be worth your while to buy the Chanel. Now that being said, I am very particular about the cake liners I use and therefore I will continue to keep these liners and use them until there is nothing left to use. I figure that by the time I'm 60 I may have run completely out.

Here are all three swatched heavily on my arm. I think the color looks accurate when applied to my eyes, I just don't see it as well because the line is so small.