THANK GOD IT'S FAVOURITES: Rimmel Exaggerate Liquid Liner

I’ve been using this eyeliner for ten years.

That freaks me out a little bit, in a good way. That’s before three (out of five) of my siblings were born. That’s before anyone had heard of Nicki Minaj. That’s before Mean Girls came out.

I try a lot of new products, but I’ve never found a liquid eyeliner that fills the special place in my heart that I have reserved for Rimmel’s Exaggerate. It’s beautifully cheap – £5.29 from Boots – and a really lovely formula. Products, especially budget products, don’t stick around for ten years with no formula changes for no reason, and this eyeliner really backs that up. It’s got a lot of pigment, which makes it really easy to apply without getting that watery effect that is a problem for a lot of the cheaper liquid liners, and which also means it goes on easily over eyeshadow (obviously a huge plus for me).

It also lasts for a long, long time. Liquid liners obviously don’t have the staying power of gel liners, but although there are lots of gel liners that I really like, I’ve never made the complete switch, because I’ve never needed to. Around a year ago I went to a Halloween party and accidentally got home at 8 AM, and there was a moment when I was hesitantly approaching my mirror, prepared for the worst – and it was pretty bad, I won’t lie – but my eyeliner was still intact, cat eyes and all. Rimmel: making your eyes look less of a hot mess than the rest of you. I don’t know why they’ve never used that tagline.

My very, very favourite thing about this eyeliner, and the main reason that I’ve never found another one that does it for me, is the brush. It’s a very fine brush, flexible at the very tip but mainly quite firm, and it is perfect. There is not a single thing I can say against it. As I’ve grown older (remember, I first bought this aged thirteen), the products I’ve used have gradually become a bit fancier, a bit more high-end, but this one has stayed. Like I said, I try a lot of new products, including eyeliners, and a lot of them are great, but I’ve never, ever found a brush that measures up. They tend to be too flimsy for me, without that firmness that makes Rimmel Exaggerate special.

TEN YEARS, you guys. I cannot recommend this product enough. It is sublime, and it’s barely a fiver (for UK readers, Rimmel products are also currently two for £10 in Boots!). What are you waiting for?