CindyB
09-22-2004, 11:53 PM
Last week I covered How To Apply Mascara (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1831). This week, it's liners, both lip and eye liners.
A great makeup job can be ruined by your liners. The really cool thing about both the lip and eye liners is, they can be used to make that difference in your look.
Eye liner
Eye liner is used to give your eyes shape. You want the focus to be on the eyes, not the makeup surounding the eyes. Use the liner for it's purpose, to shape the eye! The key here is to be subtle. You don't want a big black line under your eyes. Try to keep your line small and neat. Believe it or not girls, eye liners come in a whole bunch of colors. YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO USE BLACK! Try one the color of your eyes!!!!
I've never been a big fan of liquid eyeliner. To me, it draws to much attention to the line and not the eye. Also, it's harder to correct after you make a mistake, and trust me, you'll make a mistake. I like pencil eye liners but if your comfortable with the liquid, then by all means, go for it.
How to apply:
How many of you start at the inside corner and work outwards? Yep, me too until I learned the proper way. You want to work from the outside in and I'll tell you why. Remember earlier about saying eyeliner is used to give your eyes shape? When you are applying your eyeliner, DO NOT go corner to corner. This will take some experimenting but try going just half-way. You will find this will really open your eyes. If you go corner to corner, you are simply making your eyes look smaller (if you have big eyes, that's a good way to make them appear smaller). For a more formal, evening look, go about three-quarters of the way and a tiny bit heavier (I said tiny!). If you work the liner from outside in, then you can go a little ways, see how you like it, and if need be, go a little further. If you were to start from the inside and started too far inside, then you are going to be removing liner and when you remove liner, you end up removing some mascara and foundation. We don't want to do that so work outside corner to inside corner!
Now, when you are applying the eye liner, open your mouth wide, brace your arm at the elbow with your free arm, resting the arm you are using against your body, and rest the bottom of your fist against your cheek bone and use your fingers to move the pencil. In other words, brace as much of your arm and hand that you can. Unless you're an artist or very adept with your hands, applying eye liner is the hardest thing to do right.
Keep several Q-tips handy (Q-tips are a girls best friend!). You use the Q-tip to help smudge the line just a tad or fix a line that got a little too heavy or out of whack. I always keep Q-tips in my purse.
Lip liner
If you are not using lip liners, I strongly urge you to run to the store now!
Lip liners have two purposes: 1) Shape your lips 2) Keep your lipstick from smearing. You want the color of the lip liner to be a shade or two darker than your lipstick color. NEVER use the same color lip liner and lipstick. And don't go too dark of shade from your lip stick.
How to apply:
Start at the center of lips and work outward lining your lips (don't go outside your lips, line the inside edge of your lips). DO NOT go all the way to the corner of your mouth. You only want to go a little more than three-quarters on your upper lip and a little less than three-quarters on the lower lip. By only going part way to the corners of your mouth, you are making your lips look much fuller and give you that pout look. Once again, this will require some expermenting but try various lengths. Now that you have your lips lined, if you are like me and have thin lips, we need to make them look bigger. Very carefully, follow your lip liner on just barely outside your lips with a very small line. Be careful, don't over-do this or you'll end up looking like Bozo the clown but it's ok to line outside your lips and give them a little more shape (esp the "heart" or "v" in the middle of the upper lip). Now apply your lipstick inside your lip liner and covering all of your lip all the way to the corners. Do not put lipstick over your lip liner as that defeats the #2 purpose of lip liner. I think you'll like the look if done properly.
And if you're like me, one of those girls that just love the look of wet lips and you want to apply some gloss, use clear gloss only and apply over your lipstick but once again, don't go corner to corner. You really only want the gloss on the middle of your lips (and don't put it on your liner!).
Always keep your lip liner in your purse with your lipstick!
Hopes this help and next week we'll cover eye shadows (my favorite!!!).
Hugs,
CindyB
A great makeup job can be ruined by your liners. The really cool thing about both the lip and eye liners is, they can be used to make that difference in your look.
Eye liner
Eye liner is used to give your eyes shape. You want the focus to be on the eyes, not the makeup surounding the eyes. Use the liner for it's purpose, to shape the eye! The key here is to be subtle. You don't want a big black line under your eyes. Try to keep your line small and neat. Believe it or not girls, eye liners come in a whole bunch of colors. YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO USE BLACK! Try one the color of your eyes!!!!
I've never been a big fan of liquid eyeliner. To me, it draws to much attention to the line and not the eye. Also, it's harder to correct after you make a mistake, and trust me, you'll make a mistake. I like pencil eye liners but if your comfortable with the liquid, then by all means, go for it.
How to apply:
How many of you start at the inside corner and work outwards? Yep, me too until I learned the proper way. You want to work from the outside in and I'll tell you why. Remember earlier about saying eyeliner is used to give your eyes shape? When you are applying your eyeliner, DO NOT go corner to corner. This will take some experimenting but try going just half-way. You will find this will really open your eyes. If you go corner to corner, you are simply making your eyes look smaller (if you have big eyes, that's a good way to make them appear smaller). For a more formal, evening look, go about three-quarters of the way and a tiny bit heavier (I said tiny!). If you work the liner from outside in, then you can go a little ways, see how you like it, and if need be, go a little further. If you were to start from the inside and started too far inside, then you are going to be removing liner and when you remove liner, you end up removing some mascara and foundation. We don't want to do that so work outside corner to inside corner!
Now, when you are applying the eye liner, open your mouth wide, brace your arm at the elbow with your free arm, resting the arm you are using against your body, and rest the bottom of your fist against your cheek bone and use your fingers to move the pencil. In other words, brace as much of your arm and hand that you can. Unless you're an artist or very adept with your hands, applying eye liner is the hardest thing to do right.
Keep several Q-tips handy (Q-tips are a girls best friend!). You use the Q-tip to help smudge the line just a tad or fix a line that got a little too heavy or out of whack. I always keep Q-tips in my purse.
Lip liner
If you are not using lip liners, I strongly urge you to run to the store now!
Lip liners have two purposes: 1) Shape your lips 2) Keep your lipstick from smearing. You want the color of the lip liner to be a shade or two darker than your lipstick color. NEVER use the same color lip liner and lipstick. And don't go too dark of shade from your lip stick.
How to apply:
Start at the center of lips and work outward lining your lips (don't go outside your lips, line the inside edge of your lips). DO NOT go all the way to the corner of your mouth. You only want to go a little more than three-quarters on your upper lip and a little less than three-quarters on the lower lip. By only going part way to the corners of your mouth, you are making your lips look much fuller and give you that pout look. Once again, this will require some expermenting but try various lengths. Now that you have your lips lined, if you are like me and have thin lips, we need to make them look bigger. Very carefully, follow your lip liner on just barely outside your lips with a very small line. Be careful, don't over-do this or you'll end up looking like Bozo the clown but it's ok to line outside your lips and give them a little more shape (esp the "heart" or "v" in the middle of the upper lip). Now apply your lipstick inside your lip liner and covering all of your lip all the way to the corners. Do not put lipstick over your lip liner as that defeats the #2 purpose of lip liner. I think you'll like the look if done properly.
And if you're like me, one of those girls that just love the look of wet lips and you want to apply some gloss, use clear gloss only and apply over your lipstick but once again, don't go corner to corner. You really only want the gloss on the middle of your lips (and don't put it on your liner!).
Always keep your lip liner in your purse with your lipstick!
Hopes this help and next week we'll cover eye shadows (my favorite!!!).
Hugs,
CindyB