The cat-eye: We look to icons of different eras for inspiration—plus, tips for painting your own
The cat-eye is having a moment. Celia Ellenberg takes us through its many versions over the years and finds out how to execute them.
While spring tends to signal the arrival of all beauty things light and bright, the runways told a different story this season as designers embraced a certain graphic cosmetic accoutrement that’s seen an impressive evolution over the past few centuries. Behold, the rebirth of the cat-eye. Black-rimmed upper lash lines were the makeup look of choice at shows such as Ruffian and Dolce & Gabbana, and while the backstage miracle workers made it look easy, mastering the perfect flick on your own can be a different story. We’ve gathered eight eyeliner icons and asked Hourglass Cosmetics’ artistic director Gina Brooke and makeup artist Pati Dubroff to weigh in on whether the liquid pen is truly mightier than the kohl pencil when it comes to crafting the perfect winged liner. Because, according to Brooke, “if you use the right products, getting the look is not an issue.”
GET THE LOOK:
CLEOPATRA | AUDREY HEPBURN | SOPHIA LOREN | BRIGETTE BARDOT | BETTY DRAPER | KATE MOSS | AMY WINEHOUSE | ADELE
CLEOPATRA
THE LOOK
“If anyone were to do this now, it’d be kind of extreme,” Dubroff says. Makeup artist Alberto De Rossi gave Elizabeth Taylor the elongated line and colourful shadow for Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1963 film about the Egyptian queen, and Alexander McQueen reprised the look for his Fall 2007 show. “The outer corner is unusual and not many people do it,” Brooke says, referring to the “hieroglyphic-like” tail. Brooke and Dubroff agree that the blue pigment De Rossi dusted all the way up to the brow bone is key to accentuating a line like this.
THE TOOLS
The Tools: Trace the initial black line from the inner corner of the eye all the way out toward the temple. “Use a pencil first to guide the shape but then switch to a cream on a little brush,” says Dubroff. “If you want to use a coloured shadow, you would probably do that first. But to take away the theatrical element, I would isolate [the colour] to the tail. It would look pretty incredible if you popped a neon colour at the end, like ’80s punk rock.” Brooke suggests using colours that will counter the liner and make the eyes pop, such as green, gold or aubergine.
Shown clockwise: Smashbox Arced Liner Brush 21 ($25, at Shoppers Drug Mart); Make Up For Ever Aqua Shadow ($23, at Sephora) in “Black”; Maybelline Color Tattoo 24hr Gel Cream Eye Shadow ($9, at drugstores) in “Tenacious Teal”
AUDREY HEPBURN
THE LOOK
“This is the idea of innocent, open-eyed awe,” Dubroff says of Hepburn’s classic, “demure” flick. “In the early ’60s, you would follow the socket of the eye to give it more push-back and more of a wider perspective,” she says. “Focus on the outer corner of the crease,” Brooke adds. “That’s what’s bringing [the line] out.”
THE TOOLS
“This is very much about the lashes and using a shadow to get a very subtle, beautiful line,” says Brooke. “You have to use a matte shadow that’s very finely milled, so you can take it very thick or very thin with more of a glide.” She emphasizes the need to blend the pigment into the lash line. “It’s about making the top of the lashes look dense and full,” Dubroff says, suggesting brown or grey shadow rather than the classic black for a modern update. “There’s a sense of the ladylike, so doing it with dark brown—or a dark grey if you’re very pale—would be really pretty. If you want to do a lip here, it could balance things really well.”
Shown from left to right: Sephora I.T. Angled Eyeliner Brush ($20, at Sephora); Cover Girl Lashblast 24hr Mascara ($12, at drugstores) in “Very Black”; Clinique Colour Surge Eye Shadow Stay Matte ($18, clinique.ca) in “Slate”; Bobbi Brown Eye Shadow ($26, Holt Renfrew) in “Espresso”
SOPHIA LOREN
THE LOOK
“When I recreate a Sophia Loren eye, it’s really about a fine, delicate line along the lashes, space and light in the centre of the lid, and drawing out the crease to meet the corner and make a perfect almond,” Dubroff says. “The big thing is that [the liner] is under the eye as well and the corners meet and drag the eye upward.” Brooke adds: “You also want to accentuate the brows and the lashes—that’s what makes this look strong. If you just have the liner, it’s incomplete.”
THE TOOLS
“I would probably use a pencil first and then I would top it off with a liquid liner,” says Dubroff. (Brooke agrees. “Whenever you use the liquid it’s much stronger.”) “I’d also probably put a few individual lashes on, because the thing about her lashes is that there are no clumps,” adds Dubroff. “The mascara is applied very thoughtfully and the lashes are very combed out so there’s space in between them.”
Shown: Stila Smudge Crayon ($29, at Shoppers Drug Mart) in “Black”; M.A.C Penultimate Eye Liner ($22, maccosmetics.com) in “Rapidblack”; Ardell Duralash Natural ($8, at Trade Secrets) in “Flare Short Black”
BRIGITTE BARDOT
THE LOOK
“I love that even though she’s a blonde, she really went for the darkest black. It’s all black—boom, boom, boom,” Dubroff says of Bardot’s bombshell cat-eye, which necessitates a strong scrawl above and below the eyelashes and on the inner rims. “You have to use [false] lashes here as well,” Brooke says.
THE TOOLS
“I would definitely go with a pencil here,” Brooke says, pointing out that the line should get thicker at the top before the upper and lower strokes are joined together. “She lined the inner rims in black as well,” Dubroff says. “When I do this look for the red carpet, I give my clients a pencil to take with them to keep applying along the inner rim.” She suggests duplicating this technique and then smudging it a little bit before adding some concealer under the eyes to “catch any fallout.” One last mandate: “Pile on the mascara.”
Shown: L’Oréal Paris Extra Intense Liquid Pencil Eyeliner ($11, at drugstores) in “Carbon Black”; Urban Decay 24/7 glide-on eye pencil ($23, at Sephora) in “Perversion”; Noir Long-Wear Eyeliner ($15, noircosmetics.com) in “Forever Noir”
MAD MEN’S BETTY DRAPER
THE LOOK
“These women were head-to-toe polished. The eye would never be completely bare,” Dubroff says of the frustrated housewife look popularized by the AMC drama. “The little flick just completes the polish of the entire look,” she says. Brooke adds: “It’s just a sexy, slim line. There’s not a lot going on.”
THE TOOLS
“A liquid liner would work, although pencil would be better,” says Brooke, who suggests running your kohl liner over your forearm after you sharpen it to create a round edge that’s easier to work with. “Make sure you draw a fine line that’s thin all the way [across the lash line],” says Dubroff.
Shown: Benefit Magic Ink Jet-Black Liquid Eyeliner ($24, at Shoppers Drug Mart); Joe Fresh Fine Tip Liquid Eyeliner ($6, joefresh.com) in “Classic Navy”; Clinique Quickliner for Eyes Intense ($20, at department stores) in “Intense Black”
KATE MOSS
The Look: “She definitely modernized the cat-eye,” Brooke says of the superest-of-them-all’s smudged line with an imprecise flick. “It’s like it’s been there for a couple of days and she’s slept on it,” Dubroff says, pointing out that Moss chooses to focus her stroke on the lower rather than the upper lash line. “The upward tick initiates from below,” says Dubroff. “It’s a cool way to do it because it’s more unpredictable.”
THE TOOLS
“You want something that smudges,” Brooke says. She advocates pencils or shadows over cream or liquid liners for this look. “This is a black Rimmel pencil, not too much time spent on it. It’s a rock ’n’ roll kind of look,” says Dubroff.
Shown: Rimmel Exaggerate Waterproof Eye Definer ($7, at drugstores) in “Noir”; Givenchy Magic Kajal ($25 with sharpener, at Sephora) in “Magic Black”
AMY WINEHOUSE
THE LOOK
“What I love about this look is that it defined her individuality,” Brooke says of the late singer’s thick, signature wings that extended upward, almost to the brow bone. “It’s character analysis,” says Dubroff. “I think before she did this makeup, she was just another singer. But then she did this and it created her character.”
THE TOOLS
While Brooke suggests drawing the wide, straight line with liquid liner, Dubroff is of the mind that cream liner and an angled brush are the way to go. “I would take a dense black cream that would dry and set,” she says. “I’d draw straight up and then take that wing and plump it up from the outer corner up toward the temple, building it about a half-inch thick.”
Shown from top: Lancôme Liner Design ($28, lancome.ca) in “Black Fishnets”; Gosh Long Lasting Eye Liner Pen ($15, at Shoppers Drug Mart) in “Carbon Black”
ADELE
THE LOOK
The six-time Grammy Award winner is the latest Brit soul singer to put her own spin on the classic cat-eye by making it into a “full face” look, according to Dubroff. “There’s always something shimmery on the lid, which brings it all together,” she says. Brooke explains that Adele uses neutral shadow to make her eyes look more round, drawing attention away from that one thick, black line. “It warms things up.”
THE TOOLS
“She just goes right for it,” Brooke says. She recommends drawing the thick-from-beginning-to-end line with a liquid liner. As for the shadow shade, Dubroff observes that the pigment corresponds to the singer’s hair colour; when it’s lighter, so is the shadow. When her hair shade is warmer, the shadow gets warmer as well. “But it’s definitely a very bold liquid liner,” Dubroff says, “drawn from the inner corner to the outer corner in quite a thick band.”
Shown: Yves Rocher Eyeshadow ($6, yvesrocher.ca) in “Copper Gold”; Shiseido Automatic Fine Eyeliner ($35, at department stores) in “Black”
