My love affair with MAC’s Fluidliner in Blacktrack died when I had discovered Wet N’ Wild’s Eyes Creme Eyeliner was the slightly better, cheaper creme eyeliner. Despite this, it doesn’t seem to completely satiate my appetite for cheaper alternatives. Recently, I tried out e.l.f.’s Cream Eyeliner in Gunmetal. At only $3.00 why not, right?

Packaging isn’t all that different than the other creme eyeliners I’ve tried out. It’s also in a pot and it comes with its own mini creme eyeliner brush. The difference is that it’s packaged in a cool square pot:

While I do appreciate the kind gesture of offering a mini brush, I found that it wasn’t so ideal in applying the Cream Eyeliner because the brush bristles were too thin and small. Even if all you wanted to do was tightline your lashline, it’s still too thin. I had to line my eyes a few times to get a visible line.

Here’s a swatch of Gunmetal on my arm:

As you can see it’s not black, but a dark graphite gray color. You might be wondering why its gray and not black — I carelessly picked it up thinking it was black. Considering my open-ness to color, it was a happy mistake. Here it is applied to my eye with a neutral shadow and mascara:

As you can see it’s pretty dark, but not quite the boldness of a black cream eyeliner. It would do well to work in a smokey gray eye look or even a neutral daytime look since it’s not as bold as black.

Performance-wise, it lasted me a good 6 hours before any signs of fading occurred. The e.l.f. does claim that it’s smudge-proof, but unfortunately, I found it smudge-able after 6 hours. While Gunmetal is a pretty color, performance-wise, I’d have to side with Wet N’ Wild’s Creme Eyeliner here. I’d still recommend it as a decent gray eyeliner, but not with confidence.

For more information or to purchase, head here.

Score: 2/5

Disclaimer: The elf Creme Eyeliner was provided to me for review purposes-only. The opinions in this review are 100% my own.