Urban Decay 24/7 Waterline Eye Pencil has the best waterline record: 33 of 38 reviewers who used it there said it stays. Urban Decay's gel stick (20 of 25) and Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner (27 of 35) follow. The drugstore pick with the best record is Maybelline Tattoo Studio Sharpenable Gel Pencil, at 12 of 15.
Updated . How we count
Share of reviewers who stated an outcome for waterline wear. Ranked by the lower bound of a 90% confidence interval, so a product needs both a good share and enough reports to rank high.
Praise and complaints are the points buyers repeat most, shown as a share of each product's counted store reviews.
Urban Decay
Best for all-day wear
70% say it lasts all day and 40% praise the color payoff. Fading is the main complaint, at 10%.
Urban Decay
Best for intense color
A retractable gel stick. 19% say it fades on them, more than the pencil above.
Stila
Holds on the waterline for most Sephora reviewers, though 25% still mention smudging, the most of any liner here.
Maybelline
Best for a drugstore budget
Ranked on 23 Ulta reviews. On Maybelline's own site, 9 of 14 say it stays, which we show but don't count.
e.l.f.
Best for value
A small sample (19 reviews), but a good record. 32% call it good value.
Sephora Collection
18% mention it fading through the day and 15% mention smudging.
Urban Decay
The classic Urban Decay pencil does less well on the waterline than the dedicated one above. 14% mention the price.
The 7 products ranked here carry 127,427 reviews at Ulta and Sephora. We searched them for waterline wear and read the newest matching reviews, up to 40 per product and store, posted between Jul 2011 and Oct 2026.
A review counts only when the reviewer used the product themselves. We drop reviews written in exchange for a free product or a sweepstakes entry (130 on this page), and products that are no longer sold.
Ulta also shows reviews first posted on brands' own websites. They run much more positive than store reviews of the same products (across 19 products with both, 76% of brand-site reviewers said the product solved the problem, against 55% of Ulta shoppers), so we show them on product cards but never count them.
Because we searched for the problem, people who had it are overrepresented. Compare products with each other rather than reading a share as your own odds.
An AI model labels each review against a fixed list of points, and we spot-check the labels before publishing. We publish counts and link to the product pages, never the reviews themselves.
In these reviews, Urban Decay 24/7 Waterline Eye Pencil: 33 of 38 who used it on the waterline said it stays, and 70% of its reviews say it lasts all day.
The waterline pencil does best (33 of 38). The classic Glide-On pencil does less well: 11 of 17.
Maybelline Tattoo Studio Sharpenable Gel Pencil is the drugstore pick with the best record here: 12 of 15. e.l.f. Smoky Kohl Eyeliner follows at 11 of 15.
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