EVELYSS / Guides / Beauty

Winged Eyeliner for Hooded Eyes, Step by Step

“If your wing vanishes the moment you open your eyes, you weren't doing it wrong. You were using instructions written for a different lid. Draw it for the eye people actually see, which is the open one.”Her take

Why regular wing tutorials fail on hooded eyes

A hooded eye has a fold of skin that sits over part or all of the crease and lid when your eye is open. Standard tutorials tell you to close your eye, pull the skin taut and draw a neat straight line. On a hooded lid, that straight line disappears into the fold when you open your eye, and what comes out the other side looks like a broken hook.

To check whether yours is the kind of eye this guide is for, look straight ahead in a mirror with your face relaxed. If you can see little or none of your lid at the outer corner, the technique below will suit you. That includes downturned eyes and lids that have become more hooded with age.

What you need before you start

A flexible felt-tip pen, or a gel liner with a fine angled brush, gives you the most control. Felt tips are easier for beginners, and gel gives you more time to correct. A liquid liner with an ultra-fine tip also works well in a small lid space, but very wet liquid liners with a long brush tip can be hard to handle here.

Because the hood presses against your lid, liner transfers more easily than it does on other eyes. Use an eye primer, or a thin layer of concealer set with powder, on the entire lid and up to the brow bone. Waterproof or long-wear liner is worth using, and you should let it dry for a full 30 seconds with your eyes looking down.

How to draw the wing, step by step

Set up a mirror at eye level, not on a table below you, and sit up straight with your chin level. Do one eye at a time.

• Look straight into the mirror with your eye open and your face relaxed. Don't lift your eyebrows.
• Hold the pen against your outer corner and angle it toward the tail of your brow. Make a small dot where you want the tip of the wing, far enough out that it clears the hood.
• Eye still open, draw a short line from the dot down to where the wing should meet your lash line. It may look like a little hook on the fold. That's fine.
• Close your eye halfway and draw a thin line along your lash line, from the inner third out to meet the wing.
• Open your eye, check the shape, and fill in the gap to smooth out any bend or missing section.
• Copy the shape on the other eye, using the distance from your brow's tail as a guide. Then correct both eyes.

What is a bat wing, and should you try it?

A bat wing is the shape you often get with this technique. With your eye closed, the line looks like a small notch or gap at the fold, a bit like a bat's wing, while with your eye open, it looks like a clean, continuous flick. That odd shape is the whole point, so don't try to fix it by closing your eye and smoothing it out.

If you want to go simpler, try a shorter wing that stops as soon as it clears the fold. A small, thick-based smudged wing also works well if you don't want to chase sharp lines. For your first few attempts, keep the wing shorter than you think you'd like. You can always make it longer.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

These are the most likely reasons your wing still looks wrong. Most of them come down to thickness and angle, so fix those first.

• Too thick on the lid: thick liner takes up the small visible lid you have. Keep the line thin and put more weight at the outer corner.
• Angle too low: a wing that follows your lower lash line can pull the eye down. Aim toward the tail of your brow instead.
• Lifting your eyebrows while you draw: the fold moves and the shape shifts when you relax. Keep your forehead still and check the shape with your face at rest.
• A shaky hand: rest your elbow on the table to steady it.
• Fixing it while wet: let it dry, then use a pointed cotton swab or a flat brush with micellar water to clean the edge.
• Uneven wings: step back from the mirror, or take a phone photo. Looking too close makes small differences seem huge.

How to keep it from smudging onto your lid

If you still get a stamp of liner on the upper lid, the skin is touching the wet line. Hold your eye half open and look down for a full 30 seconds after you finish. You can also press matching black or dark eyeshadow along the line with a small flat brush to set it.

Oil on the lid is usually what breaks liner down later in the day. Press a blotting paper gently on your lid at midday, instead of rubbing, and touch up the outer corner with your pen.

Questions people ask

The takeaway

Eyes open, brows relaxed, angle to the tail of the brow, keep it thin, and accept that the strange notch on a closed lid is what makes it work.

Read next