Search ‘how to do winged eyeliner’ and you’ll be presented with a plethora of hacks. They run the gamut from setting your liner with a matching eyeshadow to using a pencil liner as a base, then tracing over the top with a liquid, but there’s now a new method doing the rounds.
It comes from @kat_longoria, a beauty vlogger on TikTok, and her video showing the formula for the perfect eyeliner flick has racked up 34million views (and counting). The difference? She uses surgical tape. Here’s how to do it.
This is the makeup artist-approved way to apply eyeliner so that you’ll never rock wobbly flicks again
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- Cut off a piece of surgical tape, long enough to cover the width of your face.
- Stick said tape across your face, wrapping it around your nostrils, and ending just below the ends of either eyebrow, so that the tape forms an upwards angle at each eye.
- Take two more smaller pieces of tape, and stick them on each eyelid, so that the end meets the other piece of tape, and a triangle is created between the two pieces.
- Dip your index fingers in black eyeshadow and smudge it between the two sets of tape, filling in the two triangles you have created.
- Peel off every piece of tape.
Et voila. You should finish with two perfect triangles of black shadow at the corners of each eye, with any excess (that you’d usually need to correct with a cotton bud or similar) on the tape.
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Our verdict? It’s a genius hack if you’re tight for time, but we’re not sure quite how good taping your face up and ripping it off is for your skin if you did it on a daily basis. Dr Sophie Shotter, medical director and founder of Illuminate Skin And Wellness Clinics agrees.
“Tape can be bad for the skin in two ways – first is with the adhesives that make it sticky,” she explains. “Some skins can react to them, and others may just find they have some adhesive residue left behind – removing which is the last thing you want if you’re creating a neat flick. Additionally, the stretching of the skin could also damage the proteins (that keep your complexion strong and glowy).”
If you’re still keen to give it a go, though, Dr Shotter does have an alternative: micropore tape. “In my experience, it tends to leave less residue and has a lower incidence of allergies,” she tells us. “I’d also suggest applying some counter-traction to the skin (basically holding the skin in its usual position, to prevent it being pulled in the direction of the tape) so the trauma on it is less aggressive. You could try eyeliner templates, too, which help you to achieve your perfect shape.”
Moral of the story? Don’t wing it.
