Seriously, this is time travel:

My high school lipliner/eyeliner sharpener, here with me all these years later, and called upon to sharpen a thing that I surely would have used back then but have now. The mind, it is melting.

Clearly haven’t cleaned the thing since 19mumblemumble, but damned if I haven’t hung on to it. And good thing, too. I remember having the chats with reps from another brand, who said they discontinued their versions of medium-chubby stick-objects because the sharpeners were like 30 quid or something. I am remembering this imperfectly — and I won’t mention the brand, even had I remembered this perfectly — but I know I had thought to myself, ‘I think I’ve got one at home.’

I also remember wondering if Cover Girl was even still a thing, and it is, in New Jersey, anyway, surely the brand’s spiritual home. So last time I was back, when I went into CVS I kept my eyes peeled and sure enough, there was a display of the range: still going strong, still probably a magnet for a young girl’s make up desires — although I am guessing it’s tweenies now, rather than mid-teens. Me, I was rather a late-bloomer.

I think I can remember the smell of the compact powder: it really did smell like powder, a sharp clean scent with a massive overtone of roses. And the eye pencils never ever worked, never ever made my eyes look like they were out of a magazine, because they were as hard as rocks, even when you tried to warm up the ends with a lighter.

OMG, I am giving myself PTSD.

Despite its mankiness, the blade, it still mainly shaves. It’s not great, but at a very early stage, I thought my NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil was a dead loss after only a few uses. I tried, to no avail, to twist up more product from the bottom — because the thing is made of plastic, surely it dispensed with a twist? There was a seam at the end of the pencil that seemed to indicate twist-action. But no.

I was going to bin it, against my will, because I was pretty happy with it, so instead went agooglin’. Luckily, there were a number of American gals who blogged about one’s ability to sharpen the thing, despite its not-wood casing.

I am happy not to have to toss this in high dudgeon: the texture is soft, the appearance the time-travelling frost that I’m loving this summer. It appears that there are 30 shades, which is amazing, and also: I’ve got an eye pencil to try, that surely — surely! — will be super soft and make my eyes look they could be in a magazine. Better late than never!

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NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil: €4.99; Cover Girl Dual Sharpener: priceless.

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