Makeup Lesson: Cat Eyes with Gel Eyeliner

Hey y'all!

 How are you doing today? This morning, I woke up with very sad news: a friend, colleague, and neighbor of mine just passed away. My initial reaction was to curl in bed and cry until I couldn't cry anymore. However, the more I thought about it, the less likely I would do so. My friend was one of a few friends who read my blog. I would not think she'd like me not to blog today because of her. So this blog entry is in her memory and for our friendship.
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In my last post on "Makeup Lesson", some of you requested a tutorial on gel eyeliner and it took me a while to do it. Gel eyeliner was the last territory in makeup that I conquered. Since the first day I wore gel liner (documented here), it had always been a constant struggle to line my eyes with gel liner properly. Recently, the cat eyed look has become popular, thanks to celebrities like Rihanna and Beyonce. Once you master the art of lining your eyes with pencil liner, gel lining can be quite painless. It is a bit different but once you master it, gel liner can be a lot of fun.

What you need: an eyeliner brush, a concealer brush, a concealer or eye makeup primer, and a gel liner

While I have 3 slanted eyeliner brushes, the one I constantly use came from Coastal Scents. It is a bit smaller and thicker than the MAC 266, which makes it better to apply a thicker line. Before I discovered paint pots, I used to apply eye concealer to the lashes as an eyeshadow primer. The CoverGirl and Olay corrector I use feels like a creme. While the lasting power is not comparable to paint pot, it is an all-in-one product I can use. Plus, the corrector shade is similar to MAC Soft Ochre paint pot.

1. Apply the eyeshadow primer all over your eyes

2. Line your eyes with a pencil eyeliner

The pencil eyeliner is used as a guide for you to apply your gel liner. Also, it intensifies the gel liner. If you use a different color in your gel liner, this will give you a distinct and interesting liner look.

Should look like this at the end of step 2 :D

3. Dip your slanted eyeliner brush to the gel liner pot, I use MAC Blacktrack...

...and line it from the inner to the outer corner of your eye, following the pencil line

Tip: instead of attempting to line everything at one stroke, use smaller overlapping strokes. That way, you can correct your mistake immediately.

4. Wing it with a name card

Place a name card close to the edge of your lower lash line and use it as a guide for your tail (or wing). Place the brush above the guide and apply enough liner to make a small flick, then slide the card out along the lower lash line. I find it better when I use my lower lash line contour as a guide to do the flick. That way, both eyes will end up looking similar.

To look like this!

It's a cute tail and I would keep it like that for daily wear and tear. However, since I want more drama, I sing "gimme, gimme more" and dance around a pole if I can find one :)

Just kidding! There's no pole in my house and I can't dance. But I can always add more to the tail to emphasize it.

Notice the area between the tail and the rest of the body: it is a triangle. Fill in that triangle with your liner and you look like this.

And of course, you can always make the line bigger and more winged out to look like Rihanna. But I prefer to stop at this for a daytime look.

Semi-close eye, you can see the wing better here.

For a complete look, I add foundation, a little bit of creme blush, and some lipstick.

And ended up looking like this!

I find gel liners to be a lot of fun. Most brands out there have liners in a variety of colors and texture. You can layer different colors on top of each other or different textures together for a dashing look. So far, MAC Blacktrack is my go-to liner because it does not smudge or budge, despite my oily eyelids and constant humidity. The pot I have is about 9 month-old and there's still a lot of mileage to it. While it seems a bit more expensive than those from drugstore, Blacktrack is a good purchase for its price.

Aslo, thank you for testing out my new comment system from Disqus (pronounce Discuss). Now, My Makeup Blog can join the cool kids with a spanking new comment system that allows me to talk to y'all and y'all to talk to each other.

Like this, yo! (click for a larger image)

Also, notice how pretty my screen shot is? I changed the blogskin recently and it was painless, all thanked to the new features in Blogger in Draft. If you use Blogger, please take advantage of it. Until Blogger changes their comment system to something similar to Disqus, I'll continue to support both Disqus and Blogger. The one thing I love about Disqus is it allows open ID people to comment without registering. However, I highly recommend you to register a profile as I anticipate more and more folks to use Disqus in the future.

Legal stuff: except for the lipstick, which I got from a contest, the rest of the items used in this tutorial were purchased from my own pocket. For more information on My Makeup Blog's disclosure policy, click here.

I hope this post will help you. If you have any more questions, tips, or suggestions for future makeup lesson posts, please comment. I'd love to hear from you!



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