Covergirl's outlast smoothwear mascaras are retractable pencils, which I much prefer over the ones you have to sharpen. "Smoke" is what is commonly referred to as Charcoal. It's a deep gray color that I like to use if I don't want all the drama of black liner.  I was pleasantly surprised that my eyes still popped when I used this charcoal color. The only drawback of this particular liner was that I didn' think it had tons of staying power and I had to reapply before the day was over. Other than that though, the color was lovely and is a great alternative to black. It went on quite smoothly without tugging at my eyelid and you can make a cool smudgy look with this too if you just use a q-tip. If you're interested in trying charcoal grey liner, this is an inexpensive and fairly good quality option.