Saturday, May 12, 2012

Tips & Tricks: Revive dried gel eyeliner

I was going through my stash of products and I found a Buxom Lashliner in Sequins that I had forgotten about. Sequins is a black with silver glitter. Very pretty. And now very dried out.

Bummer.

So I, like any good person with internet access, googled "rescue dried gel eyeliner" and got tons of hits. Most of them were useless (like, close the jar every time you use it to help it not dry out - uh, yeah, thanks for that piece of brilliance) but a few were helpful.

It seems there are two main ways to do it: adding a liquid (glycerin, eye drops, water, mixing medium, etc) or heating it (blow dryer, microwave, hot water, etc).

Original gel liners:

Sequins                     Blue Velvet

You can tell how dried up Sequins is by the reflection off the top, Blue Velvet is more moist and squishy. Sequins has also shrunken a bit so it's pulled away from the sides of the container, and it has a crack running through it.

Sequins

I pulled out my hair dryer and heated it. I used the High Hot setting and heated it from each side along with underneath. That damn thing got hot! So if you do this be careful and don't burn yourself! Opening it up with a towel, I saw this...


Hrmm. Not much different. I touched it and it was a little softer, but not much. Huh. At this point, I can't remember how long I needed to heat it, and I was too lazy to find the video again, so I opted to try another method!


I put the pot in a baggie and put it in hot water. I let it sit for 10-15 minutes and then pulled it out. It was fairly warm but not impressively so. I opened it up and it looked about the same. I touched it and it felt about the same. Hrmm. Let's try another method!


Just stick the end of a brush in there and mash the hell out of it!


And brute force wins by a landslide!

Here are the links I read/watched, just in case you want to check them out!
Blog Posts I found (in no particular order)
Beaut.ie: How To Rescue Dried-Out Gel Eyeliner (Makeup Store mixing liquid)
YouTube Videos (no particular order)
EnKoreMakeup: Dried-up Gel Liner? Revive it! (mixing medium and primer + heat)

And if you use a spoon to mash the gel liner back into the pot, don't just put it in the sink in case someone else happens upon it and tries to clean it and ends up with black eye liner all over the sponge, hands, soap bottle, and sink. Just saying. 

Any tricks you've tried to rescue dried out gel eyeliner?

17 comments:

  1. Hey! read your post and wanted to suggest a super easy way of doing it.Ive been doing it for a while and it really works!
    Just add baby oil 2 drops and ur done! yep its that simple! or you can even use the common vaseline jelly found in most homes.I use the johnson &johnson baby oil, never had a problem.
    try and see :)

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    1. Did you have any trouble with it not setting? Or did it run/smudge? I'm so oily I'm afraid to add oil and then have it all over my face!

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  2. Wow, good to know. I only have one gel liner and it's the one from e.l.f. So far it's survived. Have you tried MAC fluid line?

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    Replies
    1. I only have these two and a little compact from smashbox with a set of them. I haven't tried Mac yet but I've heard such good things about fluidline. I think I'm the only person alive that doesn't own black track

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  3. LMAOLMAOLMAO, this whole post forreal made me laugh out loud. especially at the "thanks for that piece of brilliance" and the "mash the hell out of it!" comments. too funny. interesting methods, though. glad you (eventually) found something that (pretty much) worked! :)

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  4. Some of the advice I find on the Internet just makes me shake my head. I wish that my gel eyeliner was a tiny bit more gel-texture right now. I'll have to see which trick works best for me.

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    1. Let me know what works for you. I'm curious how it'll turn out

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  5. great timing! i was just bitching to my boyfriend this morning about my mufe aqua cream liner drying out after the mua promised me it wouldnt! totally gonna beat it up now - thanks!

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  6. such a good post! i soooo recognize myself in finding make up and thinking: right, i had this, i knew it!
    must save this just in case of it happens to my precious liners haha!!!/Azure

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    Replies
    1. Haha yeah I do that. At least I haven't bought a duplicate of anything yet!

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  7. So helpful! Mine starts to dry out around the halfway point, which is so frustrating. Will definitely try this when it gets unbearable.

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  8. thanks for sharing your way and posted some links :D
    this will really helpful when mine getting dry, but hope its not, hehe

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  9. I'll be bring this for sure! One of the reasons I don't wear gel eyeliner anymore is because it gets dry so fast!!

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  10. I have these tubes of gel eyeshadow by hard candy. They have dried out. What does everyone recommend I do to moisten them back to life?

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    Replies
    1. I honestly would try a small amount of water as above but just to loosen it, then maybe add blitzy (?) gel glitter adhesive into it and mash it all around. Heat would probably help too, but don't use hot tap water because it contains things like calcium deposits. The gel is from sallys

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