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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