I Bought Lady Gaga’s Eyeliner And Oh My God
By: Shani Silver
Tags: Review, Beauty, Advice, Makeup, Humor

Of course it’s amazing. F*cking of course.

Look, you mark anything down by 50% and I’ll buy it. I don’t care if you’re pushing beauty products or frozen meat, mama loves a deal. I mean Jesus Christ my cat was on sale when I adopted her, they’d slashed the fees to clear out a cage or two. The typical price for the Haus Laboratories by Lady Gaga: LIQUID EYE-LIE-NER (that’s what they fucking call it), is $20. But on Black Friday Amazon marked it down to $10. That’s actually less than what I pay for the liner I use because I read about it being some sort of miracle secret cheap product on Buzzfeed, so I was in. It arrived within 48 hours. This pleased me.

If you’re wondering why such a deal was even on my radar to begin with, it’s not because I feed my retargeting goblins a steady diet of quasi-current pop. It’s because I’ve been wearing an inordinate amount of thick black eyeliner these days due to the fact that I’ve recently finished watching The Queen’s Gambit. It’s working for me, let’s move on.

First of all, this is the finest writing instrument I’ve ever held in my hand, period. I don’t care that its primary purpose is to write on my face. It’s sleek and substantial, they could have signed the Magna Carta with this shit. It makes sense, if you imagine Lady Gaga’s own vanity table and all the products upon it, this thing would have to be luxe in order to simply fit in.

Speaking of Lady Gaga, I typically don’t purchase products with celebrity names attached to them, because my default setting is that they’re never going to be as amazing as the celebrity themselves, and therefore will always be at a bare minimum a little disappointing. Also so many products associated with celebrities always (perhaps ironically) end up being kinda cheap. In this instance, I am so very happy to be so very wrong.

This is the best fucking eyeliner, sorry EYE-LIE-NER I’ve ever used in my life. It is smooth. SMOOTH! It glides on as if a layer of vaseline had been laid down first. The product comes out full-coverage the first time, so you don’t have to trace over your liner again to get a solid line thereby increasing your chances of sabotaging an entire morning’s work. The weight of the liner pen, which we’ve established is befitting the Gaga, allows you to write with pretty goddamned good accuracy. I had a thick, even, 1967 wing going in mere seconds! But as we all know, application is only test #1. You ain’t worth writing about unless you pass #2.

It’s cold outside. My eyes water profusely when it’s cold outside. Friends, let’s take a walk. I took myself and my painted eyelids outside for a 2 mile roundtrip walk to the grocery store. If you need to know a store in Brooklyn that has disinfecting wipes in stock by the way, I’m your girl. When I got home, I raced to the elevator to catch a glimpse of myself in its massive mirror and unforgiving lighting. Holy shit.

My eyes were encircled top and bottom in a halo of black cosmetic residue. But…what’s this, the eyeliner hasn’t budged! It’s still pristine! It looks like I swiped it on mere seconds ago! The fallout I was wiping off my face with my mask was actually left there by my mascara, a product you certainly won’t catch me wasting words on any time soon. The Haus Laboratories by Lady Gaga: LIQUID EYE-LIE-NER had passed the toughest test I could ask of it, and it did so without, forgive me, batting an eye.

I paid ten, but when it runs out I’ll gladly pay $20. This is the good shit, the gold standard in serious eyeliner for those of us who fucking love to wear serious eyeliner. You could Winehouse yourself with this, and have a good time doing it. It’s not often that I tell anyone outside of one particular Slack channel what I think of the beauty products I try, but the world needs to know that when Lady Gaga makes eyeliner, she makes it good. So go forth, my winged sistren and brethren, embark upon your beauty journeys. By the time you reach your destination, your eyeliner will be exactly where you left it.

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Shani Silver is a humor essayist and podcaster based in Brooklyn who writes on Medium, frequently. Links used in this post are affiliate links.