K-Palette, why do you have to be so freaking verbose? You have such a tiny little brush, but such a fat name.

Ok, so these are two liquid drugstore eyeliners that both retail for 1260 Yen (around £10 or $15). The K-Palette 1 Day Tattoo line is made up of products for brows and eye-lining, and Dolly Wink is well-known for its eyeliner and false eyelashes.

Let’s get down to business.

Overview

Japanese liquid eyeliners in general are said to be better than their Western counterparts. Now, I’m sure there are exceptions to this rule (as always with sweeping generalisations) but both these eyeliners come out top over any I’ve tried before (though my experience with liquid liner isn’t huge).

Both eyeliners are very good: they’re both long-lasting and they both have those lovely brush-type applicators that allow for loads of control but have enough flex to give a natural flick.

Applicators

As you can see the K-Palette tip is super fine (it is the ‘micro’ version after all – they also have a regular version available) and makes the Dolly Wink look unfairly big in comparison, but the Dolly Wink is also pretty fine in the grand scheme of liquid eyeliners.

The K-Palette brush is also a little shorter. With any fine-tipped eyeliner brush, there’s a danger of floppiness if the brush is too long. The K-Palette’s shorter tip means the brush is stiffer and, therefore, easier to control.

As someone who’s a bit challenged when it comes to eyeliner flicks, wings and other general embellishments, I prefer the K-Palette’s tiny applicator. I can start off with a fine line and build up to the thickness I want, and mistakes are hardly noticeable because they’re so small.

If you’re looking for precision, K-Palette Micro is the way to go.

In Action

Ok so here are a bunch of examples of both eyeliners.

From the top:

• How the eyeliner builds on itself
• General liney stuff (excuse my atrocious ‘P’ of ‘Palette’)
• More lines, this time the same image so you can compare the two fairly
• The lightest possible line I can draw with each pen – I had to do the K-Palette twice
• A thick line, pushing down on the brush to make it bend

Things to note:

• Both build up well with no pilling, the Dolly Wink is a little bit blacker.
• The Dolly Wink’s line can be quite thick, but also (look at the ‘n’ of ‘wink’) can be narrowed down. The K-Palette is a little less wet than the Dolly Wink (I’ve had the K-Palette for one month longer than the Dolly Wink, so it may be down to that) and so its line in the writing is not as smooth.
• Same as above.
• The Dolly Wink can actually draw a very thin line, but I find it quite difficult to get a line this consistently thin when applying it on my eye.
• The thickest lines are actually very similar, both eyeliners are very versatile.

Here you can see the two in action on skin.

• The Dolly Wink is a whole lot blacker, however (though this isn’t evident in the picture) the K-Palette’s blackness can be built up.
• Again, the K-Palette is crazy fine – look at the bottom flick of the ‘K’.

Lasting Power

I find that these two are neck and neck when it comes to lasting power.

According to the K-Palette website, the 1 Day Tattoo WP eyeliner is a tubing eyeliner, meaning that while it will come off with warm water and pressure, it won’t budge when faced with oil, sweat, or cold water. The Dolly Wink website doesn’t say explicitly whether their liner is tubing or not, but they do say that ‘although it’s resistant to sweat and water, you can take it off easily when you cleanse’.

When testing them myself I found that:

• Both looked freshly applied at the end of a day of ordinary wear.
• Both withstood cold water completely.
• Both withstood cleansing oil very well, but when pressure was added they eventually gave in.
• Both withstood lots of pressure and rubbing when they were on my hand, but only medium pressure when actually applied on eyes.

The last point is important. In general, with ordinary wear, these eyeliners will last all day – they wear like iron. However, if you rub your eyes often, you can get into some trouble. The eyeliners don’t smudge per se, they actually kind of…ball up. That is to say that the ink comes off and moves as little flecks, without leaving any smudgy residue behind. This balling is more likely to happen when the eyeliner has been layered more. So for example, one swipe of liner will withstand quite a bit of pressure, so you don’t have to run to a mirror every time you’ve inadvertently rubbed your eyes. However, if you’ve gone over the line a couple of times, just one rub can cause some flecks to come off.

Because of this, Dolly Wink is actually a little ahead of the K-Palette. Why? Because to get the level of blackness (and thickness) you get from one swipe of the Dolly Wink, you have to layer a few swipes of the K-Palette, which means it’s more susceptible to this pilling.