After what seems like an eternity of waiting, I’ve finally gotten my hands on Etude House’s Play 101 pencils. These pencils are billed as being multifunctional – you can use them in more than one way. They’ve collaborated with Pony’s Beauty Diary to create a number of looks using these pencils. My favorite is the Baby Doll look, but they’re all cool.
I ordered my pencils from Jolse (cosmetics.jolse.com). They arrived in a small box with about a metric ton of samples: Happy Day Smile blotting papers, an Etude House “I Need You, Pomegranite!” sheet mask, Etude House’s Sweet Recipe Baby Choux base, TonyMoly’s BCDation, TonyMoly’s Floria Whitening Cream, Etude House’s Face Conditioning Cream, Etude House’s Play Therapy Soft Clay Pack, and one Luke Charcoal Nose Cleaning Strip.
The boxes themselves are color coded for each pencil, and the numbers are listed on the bottom of the box. I purchased #8, #11, #12, #14, and #15.
The pencils themselves are color-coded on the ends so you always know which ones you’re picking up. The caps are the same color as the body of the pencil.
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| Just the tips (yes, I went there) |
The pencils themselves twist up, so you won’t need a pencil sharpener for them. They go on really smoothly. They’re very soft – in fact, as you can see in the swatch picture below, I pressed a little too hard when I swatched #11 and a huge chunk of the tip broke off.
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| From bottom to top: #8, #11, #12, #14, and #15. |
For reference, I’m a MAC NC20.
It’s worth noting that some of these take a minute to set – but once they do the wear time is pretty good. I swatched all of them but #15 over my lunch break at 1pm, on my wrist really quickly, and never washed it off. The color lasted all through my afternoon at work and then a session of Zumba where I sweated like nobody’s business, and now at 8:45 I can still see them (although they’re faded). That’s some serious wear.
I’d also like to say, since it doesn’t show up super well in the pictures, that numbers 12 and 15 do in fact have a glossy finish as advertised.
I haven’t tested these on my lips yet, or on my cheeks (since these are multifunctional, I could probably use them as eyeliner too, although these colors on the eyes are not really my style), and I haven’t actually attempted to conceal anything with #8 yet. Once I have, I’ll write up an update.