Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Ask My Makeup Blog: Monolid Edition


Hi everybody,

It's time again for another edition of "Ask My Makeup Blog". (Boy, I feel so popular already!) This time 'round, reader "Hi" gave me two comments on my earliest FOTD regarding makeup for monolids. Let's see what she wrote, shall we?
"Hi" wrote:

So you are pretty close to being monolid, right? My eyes are already so small and they are like rectangles because of my droopy monolidness. Can you share some tips for eyeshadow?

P.S. Eyeliner does nothing for me since all it does is disappear. It does look pretty on my bottom lashes though, but only if its a color (like purple, green, or blue). But does lining make my eyes look smaller?
Dear "Hi" and other monolid beauties,

First of all, thank you for your comments, especially since you are a "long long time" subscriber. I know lots of people read my blog but it seems like I do not get a lot of comments. So thank you and congratulations in making your mark at my blog.

Secondly, as they say, "Ask and you shall receive" and I know doing makeup on monolids is hard as we just do not have the folds in our eyes that make them look awake. The comment I receive a lot is "You look tired!" while I am not. It's just the eyes that give the impression of being tired (or being a bad person, as some cartoons draw the bad guys with tiny eyes.) And when I go to get my makeup done, the makeup artists never get it right. Not having that tiny fold makes a whole lot difference!

However, since monolidders are unique and beautiful as any other girls, we really do not need to work so hard to look like the standard beautiful big blue eyes models out there. Instead, my suggestion is to live with what God gave us and make it work (Tim Gunn style) :)

So here are some tips and tricks I've been doing to make my eyes look more awake:

1. Always highlight your eyes:

This and this only makes my eyes look a whole lot bigger. By highlighting the area underneath the brow bone, the eyes look (a) wide awake, (b) more glimmering, and (c) like I just had an eye lift. Seriously, everyone should highlight their eyes.

2. Master the art of the smokey eyes:

"Dark receed, light encloses", the common wisdom in colors, right? But forget about it, I will take the smokey eyed look every time I can. To me, it's the only makeup look that make my eyes look more dramatic. And almost everybody looks good with the smokey eyes, anyways. If you have small eyes, my advice is not to bring the dark eyeshadow up too high. Let it hover around the eyelids, smoke it out, and blend blend blend! Et voila, you got the smokey eyed look!

For a tutorial of le smokey, click here.

3. Do not try to fake the crease:

No, for the love of Sephora, please do not draw a line to fake those creases that you don't have! It's a sin, it's blasphemy! I call shenanigan on it! My mom did it once right in front of me and I almost snapped that eyeliner in half. That's how much I hate faking creases.

Instead, do this trick that I learned from Mally Roncal:
Take a flesh tone pink eyeshadow and a contour brush, then use a windshield wiper motion to apply the eyeshadow to the crease area.
Ever since I heard that lil' gem of wisdom, my eyes all of the sudden look a whole lot wider. The pink shadow (or any mid to light eyeshadow) contours and brings your eyes out. The conventional contouring-eye shading method is lighter color near the lashes and darker color on the crease. For us monolidders and small eyes beauties, the reverse (dark near the lashes, light on the crease) works wonderful, and beautiful, too!

4. Use white/pale gold eyeshadow at the inner corner of your eyes:

Country singer Taylor Swift
Image courtesy The Beauty Stop

I learned this trick from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. I know both of them are not monolidders and Beyoncé's eyes are big. Taylor Swift, however, has quite small eyes but her makeup works for her. Specifically, the white eyeshadow at the inner corner of her eyes work very beautifully. And she knows it because every time you see a picture of her, those white eyeshadows are there.

What it does is to brighten your eyes and make them look wide awake. Beyoncé before and after Mally Roncal are two different women as Ms. Roncal uses that trick on B. If you don't believe me, do a Google image search and look closely as Beyoncé's eyes.

5. Use mascara:

For the umpteen time I emphasize on the use of mascara on this blog with glee. Seriously girls, I do believe mascara is the solution to world peace. If you use your mascara well (tips and tricks here), it opens up your eyes the way eyeliner can't. Most of the time, people do not see my eyeliner at all (and that's why the smokey eyes come so handy!) But with mascara and eyelash curler, my eyes look wide open.

For the question regarding eyeliner, here's my take on it:

I only use eyeliner on my upper lashes. If I do line my lower lashes, I line 1/3 to half way from the outer corner and with a lighter colored liner. For example: if I use black liner on top, I'd use gray or off white liner at the bottom. That way my eyes do not look so boxed up and tiny.

So for your case, I'd say line the upper lashes anyways and have fun with the color liners on the lower lashes. If it looks good on you, it looks good on you. There's no need to find another way to work something that's already working. But remember mascaras though.

Another tip: I study makeup looks on celebrities that have similar eyes to me (small and deep set). Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, and Renée Zellweger have the same eyes as I do so I just study their eye makeup. It helps to some extend to see what looks good on them, then try to reproduce the look on me. If all things fail, just keep the look simple with mascara and eyeliner. That works too!

Take care, everybody. If you have any extra tips for "Hi", please give them in the comment section. I'd love to read more about them. As usual, stay gorgeous!

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P.S: If you like my blog, please subscribe to my feed. Thanks a lot!

15 comments:

  1. Great post... Although I don't have this particular issue, I always love when people accentuate their natural eye shape. I have almond shaped eyes and used to try and fight it... and now do the opposite! : )

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  2. Hi Bailey,

    Almond shaped eyes are lovely! I like how they look! You're right to embrace what you have. Fighting against Mother Nature's gift is a real big waste of time :)

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  3. Thanks Dao! BTW my google name is "Hi" but it is really Heather :) Thanks for the highlighting tip, I never really thought it did anything. Only I am pretty upset that may eyebrows were recently waxed WAY too high and uneven. I think it happened because I wasn't wearing any brow powder and I was wearing glasses, if that makes sense. Would you still recommend highlighting? because I really don't want my eyebrows to look higher
    I feel like I have to spend SO much longer doing eye makeup than is necessary. Like I hate the "flared out" mascara look. It has to be more rounded so that my eyes look less slitty. You're right about faking a crease too - it looks fake and weird. I'm just jealous of all the awesome eye looks others can do with creases!

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  4. My eyes are a bit more rectangular than almond eyes. I'm in high school so it's hard looking different lol. Especially since most people don't know what monolid is! But there's no point in letting it bother you, dot dot curve

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  5. Hello Heather,

    I'm glad you enjoy the tips. I guess you should give highlighting a try to see how it looks. I spend ~50% of the time doing eye makeup as well and it's common. If you wear glasses, I think you should concentrate more on the liners.

    You're right not to let others bother you. There's no standard of beauty, anyways.

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  6. Dao, I can't thank you enough for this post!

    Fabuless! I am trying to get my smokey right since I have somewhat monolids, but actually my crease is so small and tiny that it look like monolids!

    Am bookmarking this page so that I read your tips over and over again!

    Am following ur blog too! ^_^

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  7. Hi Plue,

    I'm glad you enjoy this post. Smokey eyes look good in everybody, especially Asians. I hope you'll master the art soon!

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  8. This is a GREAT post! Thanks :) I just started subscribing to your blog.

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  9. Hi MMT,

    I'm so glad you like it! And thank you for being a subscribed reader. You made my day!

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  10. Beautiful site, and great makeup tips, thanks

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  11. Hi dear friends, When i am here then i don't know about the smokey eye. but i am familiar that. Many girl are looking that type of eye, They are know it's best for us. Thanks for share it.
    r4 ds

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  12. Hi,

    Thanks for the comment. I'm glad you like it.

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  13. Wow the tips you have given is so good.I m so happy to read this because from sometime i m facing some problems and i was searching some makeup tips for eyes.Your post is so helpful for me.I will look around for more details.Keep up sharing.

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  14. Hi Vitamine e,

    I'm glad this post helps you. Please feel free to look around and if you don't see what you're looking for, you can always email me.

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  15. Hey! thanks so much! haha I have monolids and for such a long time I wouldn't wear eyemakeup because I didn't really know how to.. also you said you studied people's eyes who are like yours, well do you know any monolid people?! I'm not sure what to look up hahaha
    oh and my name is Leili sorry on all the other options it says my last name and I didn't want that
    oh and I have a YT channel! maybe go check it out and message me or something so I can contact you more often because I'm not sure how to follow a blog, but I will keep it in my bookmarks!
    forgot to say- my YT channel is ukuleili8

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Dear Dao...

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