The Budget Fashionista

Which one do you all use? I used black up until a few years ago when I switched over. I like brown because it doesn’t look as harsh, but I like the black eyeliner look on others—especially when it’s sultry/smoky. Does anyone use blue or green or other unconventional eyeliner colors?

I think the bright eyeliner colors look best on teens and 20-somethings, and only for outside of work. Other colors can look good if you use the more subtle shades of those colors. I love to use green eyeshadow sometimes, and since I stick with pale green and dark olivey green, I can get a great smoky look without looking bruised.

I used to use black liner too, but I found that it got me comments about my makeup, as opposed to how I looked. About a year ago, I switched to brown, and I find that it emphasizes my eyes even better than the black because it’s more subtle and natural-looking. My eyes are my best feature, so I like to play them up.

I once bought reddish/maroon eyeliner from MAC and I was told it looked like my eyes were bleeding—since then, I haven’ t experimented with color eyeliners. Since I have brown eyes, I think bright colors would look odd. But blue eyeliner is trendy—go crazy if you can pull it off, I say.

I once tried some deep wine/maroon liner, and it was supposed to play up the green in my hazel eyes, but it just played up the redness in the eyelid skin.

I’ve tried white, black, brown, and electric blue. The blue looked fantastic! It’s a very fun color to use. Black is harsh, but if done right, you can get the smoky, sultry look. I applied too much of white, so it looked rather awful, but if used in moderate amounts, white can help eyes look bigger. Brown is a nice, subtle, everyday color.

Machazait, I had the same experience—tried the plum because I have green eyes, and it was supposed to make them really pop—but instead, I just looked more bloodshot than usual. Perhaps on the eyes of a well-rested 18 year old it would work better . . .

I wear brown pretty much across the board, but I change how I wear it depending on the situation and my mood. I have a “cappucino” brown Clinique pencil that’s very subtle for a lighter makeup day, and then I have my new .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) that I use for a more dramatic look. I also use eyeshadow over the liner sometimes to soften or for a different effect . . .

But, to answer your original question, yeah, brown . . .

Oh, I did want to add that there is another neutral option—gray, which I had kind of forgotten about ‘til I was digging through my makeup and found a gray Revlon eyeliner I’d purchased just a month or so ago. It’s a wet/dry liner, so it can be soft and smudgy or have a more dramatic effect—anyway, it’s a nice alternative if black too harsh.

Gray is a wonderful neutral, and it works on most people, but I’m not crazy about it on me. When I was engaged, my cosmetologist friend did my makeup for my engagement party, and she used gray liner (among other things). I didn’t like it at all. Luckily, this friend had said that this makeup would be a trial run for the wedding, so I should give her feedback, and I told her (among other things) to use brown or black liner for my wedding. When I look at my wedding photos, I can’t tell if she used brown or black because the makeup looked so good that I can barely see it.

Sorry if that scares people. Gray really is a wonderful alternative to black liner if it works for you. I just find that brown works best for me.

I have brown eyes, so using brown with brown and gray with brown would make me look tired. So instead of a soft brown, i use a soft plum color. Its a little plum-browny so its not too much, but brings out my eye color. Black vs. Brown = black always wins atleast for me. For using colored eyeliner thats not a plum-brown shade, don’t use it on the lower lash line, especially if you have a tan. It will show up too much. Also, smudge in colored eyeliner as close as you can to the lashline or layer it on top of a black eyeliner. I use black eyeliner on the top lid from tear duct to flick at the end of the eye and place green eyeliner right on top of the pupil. It looks really pretty. There is a huge difference also between using pale green and dark green. - A darkened green can pass for black ad look totally natural. - depending on how you apply it!