The Straight and Narrow

I love using powder shadows as eyeliner. They wind up looking so much softer than stick liners, and look natural if you can get the pigments right down into your lash line. But eyeshadows don't usually come with applicators that work well for drawing fine lines... actually, they don't come with applicators that do much of anything at all. But I digress...

To use your shadows as a liner, you need to hunt down an angled eyeliner brush. This brush enables you to apply a quick swipe of liner across your lids, smudge a smokey eye, and draw on dramatic cat eyes. If you can apply stick liner, you can draw a decent line with a brush. Face the longer side of the brush in towards your nose, and lead your line with the shorter end of the bristles. Use 2 short strokes super close to your lash line to get the inner corners of your eye, then apply a flowing curve along the length of your lashes. Flick your wrist up at the very end of your eye and extend your line just a tidge. This gives you a very subtle cat eye.

I use L'Oreal's HIP in Brazen (the brown shadow, not the hot pink) to dry line my eyes on regular days, as this gives a natural look when you apply it close to the lashes. For special occasions, I'll do a smokey eye with Tapestry Taupe and Almay's Stay Smooth Eyeshadow in Sapphire (Which apparently they don't make anymore. But you can find it here). Then I use a slate blue powder eyeliner by Quo (Only found in Canada, and this liner really is discontinued. Damn.) to apply a cat eye line. You wet the liner with water and it works like a liquid eyeliner - but better, since the angled brush gives you so much more control than the flimsy brushes supplied with liquid liners. Powder or cake liners really are my favorite to use.

You can also try out some cream liners, but these smudge too much during the day for my liking. The kit from Smashbox comes in fun and pretty colours.

Go, find an angled liner brush, and give it a try! And...if you're still using the foam applicators that come with eyeshadows, pick up a decent shadow brush too...

Listening to: Soon We'll Be Found - Sia