Kajal, Kohl, Surma... Call it whatever but today, women world over swear by it. Traditionally used since some infinity years in South Asia, Middle East and Northern Africa, the credit of making it a popular cosmetic perhaps goes to CLEOPATRA.Cleopatra may have used kohl to protect her eyes from the sun's glare but today it has become an essential in every woman's vanity pouch. I for one cannot let a single day go by without kohl-ing my eyes.
We may use it for varied purposes, but the main purpose for a kohl to serve as a cosmetic is to emphasize and dramatize the eyes. I have been using kohl since the past 9 years now (yes I started young and no I am not old!) and can say for sure that I have finally found the method of application that suits me best!
Yes ladies... you all heard me right! It took me 9 long years... And no I am not slow or dumb. I have always liked the effect that kohl has had on my eyes but I could never find a way in which I was actually satisfied with its effect! And I am sorry to say that 90% of the women I see with kohl-rimmed eyes actually fail to impress me with their kohl-application. Ha ha, I know I know I have no right to be condescending but ladies... do you really not want to hear what I have to say?
Ok here I go... first it took me some experiments and hence loads of expenditure to zero-in on the form of kohl that suits me best. Yes you heard me right. The form of the kajal is important :)
My first tryst was with a waxy stick in a plastic-ky casing shaped liked a FAT PENCIL...Yes yes! you guys guessed it right! It was the LAKME KAJAL! Sad to say, it didn't really work for me. I didn't find it smooth enough and it smudged too :( But for the pocket money that I received while I was in school, it did see me through... Next i tried experimenting with a Kajal shaped like a conical crayon... I am sure you can imagine it... THE HIMALAYA KAJAL... Nah! It smudged a lot! And again it wasn't smooth enough or even black enough for me. I was starting to get a bit disillusioned here, but alas I did start earning some money by doing fashion shows for my college and yippee I bought my first internationally acclaimed brand's "kajal pencil". It was from CHAMBOR! It wasn't black or smooth enough for me (am sure you guessed it by now) but it was smudge proof! Yay! yay! Finally I get a smudge proof kajal pencil... But if there is a God, which I was sure of, I would soon find a kajal that'll be smooth/black enough! And soon enough when I tried a kajal pencil from another very very expensive brand I found the black and the texture that I was looking for. Thank You REVLON! I very happily wore it to an office function and AAAARrrgghhhhh by the end of the day it had run all over and I looked like a Raccoon :( Dude! What a disaster!!!
For a long time I alternated between my expensive smudge-proof CHAMBOR kajal and the super expensive smooth one from REVLON. I used the CHAMBOR one for when I was travelling or when I knew I'd have looooong days at work and used the REVLON one for cocktail parties and other such short events. But one day lighting struck! A storm brewed! And Voila! I had the perfect solution :) Yay Yay Yay! I knew the way out! I was fed up of choosing between smudge proof and perfect color and now I had the key to enjoying both... Yipee...So finally all that was required was lining the internal rim of my eyes with REVLON's jet black kohl and using the CHAMBOR kohl to dramatize my eyes by applying it under my lashes and below my eyes :) The result? Super defined eyes and that too smudge proof :D
