re.create: Day 1, Step 1 - Liner - Powdered smoke

Welcome to Day 1, Step 1 of liner week!

The first step that I took when learning to do liner was a) to use a forgiving medium, and b) find myself a crutch to create the wing.

It's for this reason that I suggest, if you are new to lining your eyes, that you get practising with a dark eyeshadow. It doesn't necessarily have to be black or brown, it could be a deep maroon, plum, or khaki for the autumnal-look.

Here is what I used:

• Naked Basics palette, Urban Decay
• Paint pot in Bare Study, MAC
• Fluffy eyeshadow brush
• Angled eyeshadow brush (or paintbrush)

So here we go! Start with your nude eyelids. Then apply some sort of primer, I used a MAC paint pot in Bare Study which is slightly shimmery. I applied matte eyeshadows from the Naked basics palette on top of this though, with a little of Naked 2 and a spot of Faint in the crease then a soft sweep of W.O.S on top of the lid and nearer the eyebrow. It is perfectly fine to line your eyes without any sort of base colour, particularly when using gel or pencil, but it does help to have some sort of primer on your lid to help the eyeshadow hold.

[Sorry about that stray wispy hair to the right!]

Next, grab a piece of tape, stick it briefly to the back of your hand to reduce its stickiness, or use a paper-type tape such as masking tape or a post-it note (I find the plastic post-it marker to be particularly suitable for this) and stick it where you want the outside edge of your wing to end up. The safest way to find an appropriate line is to follow the edge of your bottom lid line up to the tip of your eyebrow. Now, my eyebrows stop a bit short so I have to imagine a line or extend my brows a bit longer! I actually line my liner to wing out slightly more horizontally than that so I adjust the angle and try to line up both eyes equally.


Next, take an angled brush and dip it into your dark eyeshadow. Knock of a little of the product back into the pan if you find that you get little clusters of particles on your brush as these will make your eyeliner too smudgy and messy (unless this is what you're going for). Gently push the top edge of the angled brush along your upper lashline, nestling the brush on top of your eyelashes. This will produce a very subtle line which you can make thicker if you wish. It's easiest to do this with the longer end of the angled tip pointing inwards towards your nose.




Then it's time to make the wing! Flip your angled brush around so that the longer end of the bristles is pointing toward the end of your eyebrow and draw downwards along the tape that you have place there. This creates a nice solid line.  I then like to flip the brush 180 degrees and sweep along this line upwards so that you get a wispiness to the end of the liner tail. Don't worry if the eyeshadow gets on to the tape - that's what it's there for!




From here, with the longer side of the angled brush pointing towards your eyebrow again, draw a line from 1/4 of the way down the end of your wind down to the centre of your eye. You are creating some thickness to the liner by doing this and you can make the gradient of this line steeper for a thinner wing, or flatter for a thicker wing. Fill in any gaps inside the triangle you have just made by stamping or sweeping the brush inside it.

Carefully remove your tape - and voila a perfect, soft wing!



Just finish off the look with a curl of your lashes and some mascara. Here I used Rimmel Scandaleys mascara in the green tube. I like the formula of this, but don't like the (huge!) wand from this mascara so I have swapped it for the wand from a Max Factor Clump Defy/Covergirl Clump Crusher which gives much better separation. You can see a post that I did on this here.

If you want a smokier look, simply use your angled brush with your dark eyeliner colour, or even better on shade lighter, nestle it along the line you have already drawn and then flick it directly upwards to create some 'smoke' from the line. Repeat this all along the line, but reduce the amount of smoke toward the inner corner of your eye. I haven't done this today, so I left the eyeliner as it was.



I hope that you enjoyed day 1 of liner week and that you found it helpful. Tomorrow we move on to a new medium - pencil! and also a new crutch.


DB xx