An Excellent Lip Liner That Falls Short for True Cool-Toned Skin, A Cool-Toned Perspective
MAKE Beauty Continuum Lip Liner in Pulse With Velvet Matte Finish The MAKE Beauty Continuum Lip Liner in the shade Pulse is a beautifully made product with a refined pencil design, excellent formula, and impressive wear. It is a dusty pink shade with strong pigmentation and a smooth, elevated feel that reflects thoughtful formulation and quality craftsmanship. Texture and Application This liner glides effortlessly across the lips with no tugging or dragging. The creamy texture feels soft, controlled, and precise, allowing for easy lining, shaping, and filling. The velvet matte finish looks polished rather than dry, and the formula feels moisturizing and comfortable throughout wear. The built-in sharpener and blending brush are practical additions that make the pencil feel complete, high end, and well designed. Wear and Performance Once applied, the liner stays in place exceptionally well. It resists feathering, holds its shape, and maintains color for extended wear. The formula delivers long-lasting performance while keeping lips feeling supple rather than tight or dry. From a technical and functional standpoint, this is an excellent lip liner. Color Evaluation and Undertone Reality This is where my one caveat comes in, and it is an important one. While Pulse is described as a dusty pink, it leans warm on the skin. As a cool-toned woman with light to medium coloring, even subtle warmth in lip products quickly shifts into an orange-leaning territory on me. This is a common issue for truly cool-toned wearers, and it is something that many cosmetic labs continue to overlook. Cool-toned women exist across a range of skin depths, not only very fair complexions. When products are tested primarily on warm or neutral undertones, shades that appear balanced on paper or in the lab can translate very differently in real-world wear. On my lips, Pulse warms almost immediately, making it unwearable for my coloring, despite how much I admire the formula itself. A Thoughtful Industry Note I am an artist and writer by profession, so I have a strong understanding of color and hue, and I am always searching for truly cool-toned makeup products. Very few manufacturers genuinely commit to developing and testing shades on real, cool-toned women, particularly those with light to medium skin tones. As a result, many products marketed as pink, mauve, still skew warm in real-world wear. This liner feels like it is about 70% of the way to perfection, because at the end of the day what matters most is how the color translates on the skin. The design, formula, glide, longevity, and comfort are exactly what I look for in a lip liner. If the shade had been truly cool-toned, it would have been a staple in my collection. I am not reducing my rating due to my undertone, as the product may be intended for warm-toned wearers, and for them, it may be beautiful. Clean Formulation and Brand Standards MAKE Beauty continues to impress with its commitment to dermatologist-tested, cruelty-free, gluten-free formulations. This liner is free from parabens, phthalates, petrolatum, and PEGs, and it feels suitable for sensitive skin. The quality of ingredients and performance reflects a brand that values thoughtful, utilitarian beauty. In Closing The MAKE Beauty Continuum Lip Liner in Pulse is a beautifully crafted, high-performing product with excellent glide, wear, and comfort. While the shade leans warm and does not work for true cool-toned wearers like myself, the formulation itself is outstanding. I sincerely hope future shade development includes deeper consideration and real-world testing (while holding labs responsible) on cool-toned women across a range of skin depths, because when it comes to formula, MAKE Beauty is very close to creating something truly exceptional. Read more
