It's rare that you'll hear a bad word about black eyeliner from us. We consider it a staple, as vital to have on hand as sugar, coffee and toilet paper.

Naturally, as black eyeliner afficionados, we were intrigued by the Sephora alert about this new Tarte EmphasEYES High Definition Eye Pencil. It is black! It has a cool applicator! It's extra skinny, allowing you to make very very precise little black lines!

The novelty factor was high, and on our next (embarrassingly frequent) trip to Sephora, it was the top item on our list for checking out. Sadly, this turned out to be impossible.

Why? Because this pencil is so tiny and subsequently so fragile that all five of the testers were broken! And really, that told us all we needed to know right there. We may like to consider ourselves delicate flowers, but realistically we're regular clumsy folk. Tools that break too easily are tools that will let you down when you need them most, like when you're rushing to get ready for a hot date or going to your High School reunion.

Also, we discovered that palm oil is one of the ingredients, and the expansion of palm oil plantations is seriously endangering Orangutans in Malaysia. Of course, many cosmetics contain this ingredient, but Tarte advertises it as if this was a benefit, which is misguided and ignorant.

Sorry, Tarte! We hope to have better luck with you next time, and definitely let us know if you change the formulation.