The phrase “how to do winged eyeliner” can be intimidating for many people. Done well, it looks amazing. Done not so well, it can look like a mess. While the application is pretty easy and straightforward, there are little nuances that you need to be paid attention to. This will make winged eye look right for you.

We will show how we both make winged eyeliner work for our eye type/shape. It’s close to being the same for both of us, although Dianne’s eyelids are much more hooded than Jen. If you’d like more information on what exactly are hooded eyelids, take a look at this article by Lashify. The article will also help you identify your eye shape too. Then come back and follow our step-by-step instructions.

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Jen’s How-To Winged Eyeliner

I’m a wing liner gal. I used to do one every day when going into the office for work, and although I was out of practice due to the pandemic, I still typically do one when putting on my makeup. 

I love the lift and shape it gives my eyes! Especially since I have hooded eyes too and I can still pull this look off! 

Although I usually do my wing liner with a liquid liner pen, I’ve done wing liner with eyeshadow and eyeliner pencils, and you can too!

The easiest way to do a wing liner look is to start with a light brown eyeshadow and a liner brush. You can make sure you’ve got the right placement for your wing liner, and it’s easy to blend away if not. 

From there, you can keep using the shadow or trace the line with your eyeliner or liquid liner! 

The hardest part might be figuring out where the liner should start! 

You want your wing liner to look like it’s extending from your lower lash line, so grab something with a straight edge to use as a guide. 

In a recent newsletter, I talked about using the side of an eyelash curler as your guide. You can use the handle of a makeup brush, or even a little piece of cardboard after opening a new makeup product. 

Using your straight edge, put some shadow on your brush, and draw a line downward from the top of your wing, and connect to your lash line. 

From a little bit below the top of that line, draw another line to make a little triangle and connect to your lash line as well. 

Fill in that triangle, and thicken up the liner across your lash line to what you like best. 

From here, you can use a darker shadow if you want to do a softer wing liner look, or go back in with a pencil or liquid eyeliner!

I’ve used a lot of eyeliner products, so here are some of my favorites!

Jen’s Favorite Eyeliners

Dianne’s How-To Winged Eyeliner

I have a confession to make: when Jen said she wanted to do a post on winged eyeliner, I wasn’t so sure how it would work for me. I’ve tried it in the past, but never had a lot of luck. A lot of it has to do not only with my hooded eyelids, but the fact that my eyelids are not the same size as you can see in the photo below.

So you can easily see that my eyelids are very uneven. It can actually vary by how much sleep I’ve had and other factors, but today, the differences are pretty noticeable. So I really had to approach each eye a little bit differently.

As Jen mentioned, you want to start with figuring out where the winged liner should go. I used my eyeliner pencil to show you the angle that you want to use. It should look like an extension of the lower lashes. Then I applied a thin layer of eyeliner and stopped at the end.

Now I think that my hooded eyelids are are a little more severe than Jen’s, mostly due to the aging process. The fact that we both have them can be genetic (makes sense!) but I have the added “benefit” of gravity with aging!

So, one of the things that I read about winged eyeliner with hooded eyes is to angle them out a little bit lower to try to avoid having to work through the extra skin. The other thing I learned about hooded eyelids to do look straight into the mirror when making your wing. You might be tempted to look down like you might normally do, but resist. You need to see where the liner is going and see how it going to look after ahead of time.

After adding my wing, I drew a line from just off-center on my eyelid to the top of the wing. I then filled it in with my eyeliner. The liner I am using is KVD Tattoo liner, which is a liquid pen. I also use the dark brown which I think works better with my skin tone. But most people will use black.

I did not draw it out first like Jen did – I kinda “went for it”. But, that said, I did have to do some touching up afterwards to get it exactly how I wanted it.

One of my touch-up steps was using a little bit of concealer with a concealer brush to even smooth out the area and erase any imperfections. As I mentioned before, I had to make some adjustments to each eye individually to make them look right and even, But, voilà!

My final look is below, but here are the links to my favorite eyeliners. As I mentioned, I am using the KVD Tattoo liner in Mad Max Brown, which is shown first below. I have not used the NYX eyeliner but it was recommended a lot for winged eyeliner.

Dianne’s Favorite Eyeliners:

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