To coincide with the holiday season, Etude House has released 10 new holiday colors for their Play101 series of pencils. The Play101 pencils are multifunctional gel pencils – meaning that you can use them on different areas of your face to create fun and easy makeup looks.
The new holiday shades are not yet available on Etude House’s global website, which is a little off-putting, but they are available on TesterKorea, W2Beauty, and KPopTown. The original run of Play101 pencils went from shades 1-50; the holiday shades are 51-60. I purchased 51-59.
Here they are with the caps off:
Here they are, all swatched in a row. The top of my arm is covered in primer (specifically NARS Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base) and the bottom has no primer.
The Play101 pencils glide on easily, without tugging, and can be smudged for about a minute; then they set. As you can tell, #51 is pretty much a pure whitish shimmer, which is great for emphasizing the tear duct to give you that “I totally slept for more than 3 hours last night” look. If you want something a little darker, #53 and #59 would both work well.
Here are some comparison swatches to help you decide whether these pencils are shades that you need. My skin tone, for reference, is MAC NC20.
#53 and #59 are sort of similar shades; #53 has more glitter and is slightly pinker.
Again, #57 and #58 are similar; both contain glitter, but #58 is redder. RiRe’s Choco Brown is a shimmer shade rather than a glitter, and is a little darker and redder than both of the Play101 pencils. Holika Holika’s Jewel-Light Liner and both the Chanel liners have no glitter or shimmer. Of the Chanel liners, Ambre is a better match for #58 and Teak is closer to #57. Personally, I don’t know that you would need to purchase both shades; I would just get the one that is better suited to your coloring.
#56 was an interesting color – it’s not what I expected based on the box (I was thinking it would be something closer to the Makeon shade), but it’s a vivid berry color. It falls somewhere in between the Royal Beauty Pantone liner and Lancome’s “Mauvelle” and is very pigmented. The Pantone is a little bit more fuchsia, and the Lancome is a little bit browner. #56 does not have either glitter or shimmer.
You can tell I rarely wear pink as I have almost nothing to compare this shade to. #52 is a warm pink glitter shade.
These last three shades are all Play101 colors. While #55 is the closest to red I’ve seen in a Play101 pencil, it’s still more of a reddish pink than a true red. #54 is a corally pink, and #12 is a bright coral. None of these shades contain any glitter or shimmer.
Out of the 10 holiday shades, I purchased 9. If you were concerned about getting colors that are so close that they might as well be duplicates of each other, you could easily eliminate two from your purchase by choosing between #57 and #58 and then choosing between #53 and #59. Otherwise, the shades are all pretty distinct. The regular Play101 pencils are listed on Etude House’s global website at $6 apiece, which in my opinion is a pretty good value. If you want to try out liner in interesting colors, or maybe test out a more vivid shade than usual on your lips or cheeks (or both!) this could be an inexpensive way to do that.