I was lucky enough to receive this beautiful shadow pencil as a RAOK ( I have been spoilt). I love this shadow pencil/crayon because you can use it as an eyeliner or cover your eyelid as an eyeshadow.
I prefer to use it all over my eyelid and then add a dark eyeliner for the top of my eyelids.
This goes on smoothly and even though it is a silky/creamy texture when applying it doesn't crease and 'sets' fast.
I like the size of the pencil (hence called crayon). It is still a novelty to use at the moment as I am use to using eyeshadow with a brush or a thin eye liner pencil.
I would not have chosen gold as a colour so I am grateful this was a gift, got out of my comfort zone and I love it. Perfect with my dark brown eyes.
I have been using a selection of colours from the Covergirl Flamed Out collection for a couple of years. When I found that jumbo eye crayons existed I decided to pursue using these instead of eye shadow. I am a creative putter-on of eye shadow but always frustrated with the creasing and the blending. It certainly looks excellent when done properly but I wanted something low maintenance. So over a few months I bought the shades Flamed Hot pink flame 320, Indigo flame 360, Melted Caramel flame 350, Ginger flame, Ashen Glow 335 and the dark charcoal one I forget the name of.
The first thing that is great about these pencils is that they stick and don't crease - conversely they don't blend very well. If you apply an eye pencil to the lashline and then put the jumbo pencil over the top you can smudge the 2 together for a more blunt line of eye liner. Other than that they seem to be designed for solid blocks of colour.
In the neutral shades there are good colours - Ashen Glow (metallic pale khaki grey), Caramel (metallic beige/nude), Ginger (nothing gingery about it - it's a pale metallic champagne pink), Hot pink (deep rose pink), and the charcoal grey. I could never work out why they didn't have a bronze or copper. The indigo flame is a bright cobalt blue and I didn't try the gold.
They sharpen fairly easily, unlike some of the other jumbo crayons I tried, and they fit in the standard Manicare and dollar shop sharpeners. The pencil is wood so no fighting with a tough plastic body like the NYX jumbo eye pencil.
The downside of these pencils is the glitter. I found that with Ashen Glow and Charcoal grey, the glitter sticks in the shadow while the wears down. So what you end up with is a scratchy pencil if you don't keep the tip reasonably fresh. it's not so bad that you have to sharpen every time you use them, but the glitter can be a turn off - or a sign you need to sharpen it. I don't have the glitter problem with the ginger, caramel and pink pencils - it may only be the ones mentioned. The ones with glitter don't glide on as easily as the others.
Have also noticed that these pencils seem to be available in the Max Factor range - as in, exactly the same colours but with slightly different names.
So - I give the pencils a 4/5 because I am still using them, despite their faults. Most other shadow pencils don't have the staying power, which is very important for me. 5/5 because they do what they say they do - they give a good solid eye shadow colour that doesn't fade. I give a 4/5 for recommdation to others because I think the texture would at times put a few people off.